


Tie Your Heart to Mine

by alexcat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 2018 Captain America/Iron Man Big Bang, Action & Romance, Anal Sex, Character Death, Heart Attacks, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Smut, Time Travel Fix-It, Top Steve Rogers, Top Tony Stark, spans all movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 04:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16612046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/pseuds/alexcat
Summary: Tony wants Steve Rogers and sets out to get him.  The relationship they begin is more than either is ready for as the events play out from the aftermath of the attack on New York to the attack by Thanos and its fallout.  Can their love survive?  Can they survive?





	1. Prologue and Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KakushiMiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakushiMiko/gifts).



> This story began as a short story and bloomed into something else altogether. Like most fans, CW and IW left my heart broken so I decided to fix them. This is my fix (or one of them anyway). 
> 
> I’d like to thank my hubby for letting me bounce ideas off of him and for putting up my frantic writing in the last days. I also want to thank him for reminding me that it was MY story to tell. 
> 
> I also want to thank both of my betas. It was such a hot mess, that I needed two: athletiger and Nuinzilien. It reads more like a story now, thanks to you two! 
> 
> My artist is [**KakushiMiko**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakushiMiko/pseuds/KakushiMiko) and you’ll see her great stuff throughout the work and at her [**link!**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16613483) Her Tumblr is [**Here**](http://kakushimiko.tumblr.com/tagged/my_art). Thanks so much, Flo!
> 
>  
> 
> ****[](https://imgur.com/c4jChy9)  
> 

_“By night, beloved, tie your heart to mine_  
_and let them both in dreams defeat the darkness”_  
― Pablo Neruda

*

Prologue – 

In 2012, after the battle of New York, Tony Stark opened the file marked “WakandaForever.” It was an audio file, left by his odd visitor. 

_“Thanks so much, Tony. Do me a favor. Never tell anyone any of this. It is important that no one knows, but you. If you have more questions, I’ll be glad to answer them for you when I see you next. Take care of yourself.”_

*

Part One 

Tony Stark didn’t know how to approach what he was about to do. He had decided several weeks ago that Steve Rogers was going to be in his bed. He was not sure that Rogers would approve, but that was his goal. While he normally gravitated toward women, there had been a few men over the years for whom he had more than a passing fancy. 

And he had more than a passing fancy for Rogers. Captain America was Howard Stark’s hero and thus Tony had always needed to better him. He’d disliked Rogers before he ever met him. Then it happened – the battle of New York. He fell head over heels in love with this wonderful, beautiful, stubborn, near-perfect supersoldier. 

But the man was completely straight…or so he’d seen. And all the women adored him. Even cold-hearted Romanov had warmed to Rogers, if the time he caught them half-naked in the common room at Stark Tower was any indication. He’d also seen Sharon Carter sneaking out of Steve’s room a few times. He’d even heard a rumor that Rogers had been seen with Fury’s right hand, Maria Hill, and that they were quite close. 

There was also the problem of Rogers not liking him. He knew, as did everyone, that Rogers thought him a jaded, spoiled, entitled brat. And Stark knew he was every single one of those things. But he was more, too. He just had to make Steve see that. 

He not only wanted Rogers in his bed, but he wanted to fuck him to distraction. To be clear, he did not want to be fucked by Rogers; well, yes, he did eventually but he really, really wanted to bury himself all the way in Steve Rogers’ fine ass. He wanted to hear Rogers make sounds as he fucked him. He wanted to make Steve Rogers his own. 

Should he ask him outright? Maybe he should ask Pepper what to do. Would that be too weird, given his history with her? Probably.

One day, the Avengers got called out to defend against a crime lord in Bogotá with a lot of Chitauri tech. This man was trying to take control of the entire city. Iron Man tackled the weapons while Captain America worked to see the civilians safely out of the war zone, aided by Hawkeye and the Widow. Bruce elected to stay on the plane unless things went south and they needed his rage monster. Rhodey helped Iron Man. It was not an easy task, but they managed with much less damage than in New York and almost no loss of life. Somehow, however, the crime lord had managed to die. No one cried over that. 

They were all quite exhausted afterward. They headed to the Helicarrier, cloaked and waiting for them. After dinner, they all drifted toward their quarters. Steve’s quarters were beside Tony’s. 

“Cap, want to come in for a bit? Too early for sleep. Maybe a movie or something? I got a tablet we can watch on.” It was worth a chance, he thought. 

Steve shrugged. “Why not?” 

Tony opened the door and they entered the room, a small, utilitarian room with just enough room for a bed and chair. Steve sat on the chair; Tony sat on the bed. They watched an action film with some gratuitous female nudity, of course, and lots and lots of violence and explosions.

“Not sure I’ll ever get used to the new movies with all the nudity and sex scenes,” Steve said. “The first time I went to a movie with Maria Hill, it was R rated. When a sex scene came on, I was so embarrassed I wanted to climb under the seat.”

“You went out with Agent Hill?” Tony asked quite casually. 

“I think she felt sorry for me, so she took me to the movies.” 

“We all figured she was all business. I can’t even imagine her, um, dating,” he finished lamely, on purpose, hoping to draw Steve out. 

“She’s all right. Probably no more tense than I am.”

“You’re pretty tense, Cap. I’ve seen you with those punching bags.”

Steve laughed. “So is she.” 

“I’m dying to ask…” Tony let it hang in the air.

“I don’t kiss and tell.” 

“Oh, so you did kiss her?” 

Steve laughed. “You are an ass, Stark.”

“I am, but you can’t blame me for asking.”

“I guess not. I should go. Thanks for the movie.”

Tony dreamed about Steve that night, about his hands touching those strong arms, his mouth touching other parts…

-

They were back in New York the next day. 

When Maria Hill showed up from SHIELD to debrief them, Tony had a hard time not staring at her. Had Steve slept with her? He’d love to know. 

“Captain Rogers, it sounds as if the mission went well,” Maria addressed Steve as the leader when they all sat down around a conference table to discuss the mission. 

“It did go well,” Steve replied. “A lot less damage and fewer casualties. Though to be honest, we weren’t fighting aliens either, just alien tech. Stark took care of the tech pretty quickly. The ground forces were a little harder to take down. Ortega had an army.”

“To be fair, there were only three of you to take on an army,” Tony added.

“Director Fury was pleased,” Maria said, a tad officiously. 

Tony laughed. “Is Fury ever really pleased?” 

Maria almost smiled. “Not often, but he is glad that no civilians were hurt this time.”

After Agent Hill had gone back to DC, the team met.

“We could certainly use some more bodies,” Steve said. 

“I’m working on remote suits that work under the control of JARVIS,” Tony told him. 

“They would be good in an air battle, but I’m still thinking we need more ground presence in a situation like Bogotá or New York,” Natasha said. “We did okay, but when criminals develop a better knowledge of the alien weaponry, we’ll be at a disadvantage.”

“Maybe we do need to recruit a few more bodies then. There have to be more SHIELD agents with skill sets similar to Clint’s or Natasha’s,” Tony said. “Tell Fury that.”

They all agreed.

Steve nodded. “Great job, you guys.”

“Now we need to go out and party,” Stark piped up.

Steve looked at him, clearly irritated. “Is that all you think about?”

“No. I think of sex once in a while, cars, clothes, food - though mostly I think of hamburgers - and I think of my suits so no, it’s not all I think of. What do you think of, oh venerated one? Telephones with cranks? Woolen underwear? Jerking off to big band music?”

He watched the anger play across Steve’s near perfect features and watched him push it down. It only made Tony want him more. 

“Sorry, Stark. I was out of line. You all ignore the old man, if you would.” He was clearly angry, the tell being the stubborn set of his mouth. 

He quietly gathered his folders and left the room. All eyes turned to Stark. 

“Asshole much, Stark?” Natasha asked. “What the fuck?” 

“He hit a nerve,” was the only excuse Tony offered. Truthfully, he felt much worse than he let on. “Okay, okay, I owe him an apology.”

“You sure as hell do,” Natasha returned, anger blazing in her eyes. 

He headed for Steve’s quarters. He tapped on the door. 

“I don’t feel like talking about – Oh, it’s you. Come to see if I was jerking off to big band music? What the fuck do you want? Oh, sorry, us old men probably don’t know that word either, do we?”

“Shut the hell up a minute and let me apologize, asshole,” Tony said as he shoved past Steve and into his small apartment. 

“Why? Why should I let you apologize? Are you even sorry?”

“Yeah, I am. I was outta line, Cap.”

Steve took a deep breath and Tony saw him visibly relax. “Yeah, you were and I overreacted, too. I – something about you puts me on edge sometimes.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m like Howard.” 

“You are, but that’s not it. It’s something else, something I can’t quite figure out.”

Tony wanted to kiss Steve so bad that he was amazed that Steve couldn’t sense the need on him. He caught himself staring at that mouth, wondering how it would feel on his cock. 

“You all right, Stark? You look – well, you looked like you wanted to eat me alive for a second.” 

It was now or never, Tony decided. “Maybe that’s it.” 

“What?” An odd look crossed Steve’s face, but it wasn’t confusion. Wariness, maybe. “What does that mean?” 

“Maybe I do want to eat you up?” 

“I’m lost here.” Now Steve looked confused. Tony was sure he couldn’t explain so he decided to show him. He stepped close, leaned in and kissed Steve on the mouth. Steve pushed him away. “What the h -” He didn’t finish because Tony simply stepped back up and did it again. Steve didn’t quite return the kiss, but he didn’t push him away either this time. He stood very still, allowing Tony to put his arms around him quite slowly as if he were trying to approach an untamed colt. 

Tony broke the one sided kiss and looked at him. 

“What are you doing?” Steve whispered the words, as if afraid of them.

“I kissed you. I want to kiss you again. I’ve wanted it for a while.”

“I – why?”

“I want you. For the first time in a long time, someone has set me on fire,” Tony said, slowly raising his hand and touching Steve’s face. “You.”

Steve didn’t say anything one way or the other, still standing still in Tony’s awkward embrace. 

“Have I done the wrong thing?” Tony finally asked. 

“I don’t know what to say. It’s not the kind of thing I’m used to.” 

“I didn’t expect you to be. You’re from another time.”

Steve shook his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s that…” he stopped as if unsure of what to say. “The kiss threw me. Back when I was young, there were others, before the serum. But we never kissed. They - we just did what needed done and that was it.” The slip of the tongue didn’t get past Tony. 

“I don’t want to just do what needs doing. I want more than that, Rogers. If I want to just fuck someone, I can hire a body for that. I want you and I want to kiss you and touch you and I want you to do the same thing to me. I’m so sorry about what I said. Please forgive me. I need you to forgive me, even if you throw me out on my ass.” 

Why not, Steve thought. It was better than being alone. “Stop talking and kiss me again then, Stark.” 

So he did. 

* 

As much as Tony wanted to press for more, he didn’t. They kissed and made out, hands exploring a little here and there, but that was all. Then they kissed goodnight inside Steve’s door, a kiss that was almost Tony’s undoing as Steve slid a hand between them to caress Tony through the fabric of his trousers. 

Tony made his escape and spent a long night rolling around in sweaty sheets, dreaming of Captain America’s kisses. He finally gave in and took himself in hand, letting himself think about sliding his cock inside Steve Rogers. Shit, he thought. I have to stop this now! 

 

The next day was busy for both men. Whether it was real or manufactured business, only they knew; but they really didn’t see one another until dinner. 

“My room,” Tony said quietly to Steve as they put their plates in the dishwasher in the communal kitchen. 

After all the team had piled up in the rec room for either some television or card playing, Tony slipped off to his room. He might have been pretending to work all day, but most of the day, he’d spent trying to keep anyone from noticing the damned hard on he’d had since last night. 

He was pouring himself a drink when he heard the tap on his door.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me.” Steve.

“Come on in and lock it behind you.” 

Steve stepped in the door. He was dressed in a jeans and a white t-shirt. He hadn’t bothered with a belt or even socks. He looked like he’d slept as well as Tony had. 

“Rough night?” Tony asked. 

“Yeah. I might as well have come over here. You were there with me anyway.”

“Um, yeah, I had the same problem. Didn’t get much sleep. Felt like I did in eighth grade. You ever feel that way?” 

“Not as much. Like I said, my encounters were a little different.” 

Tony had to ask. “Did you feel used?” 

“Sometimes. There were times when it -” He stopped. “I don’t think I want to go there. It was not pleasant, let’s just leave it at that.”

“Agreed.” There were things in Tony’s past that he didn't want to think about as well.

“Now what? We fuck?” Steve was quite – well, Tony wasn’t completely sure what he was. Anxious, maybe? Still a little angry with him? 

“We’ll get to it eventually, if you want to. I was thinking more about kissing you again right now. I can be persuaded otherwise, if you want it that way.”

Tony saw that Steve relaxed as soon as he said “eventually.” Tony took a sip of his drink and set it aside, then he took a step closer and another until he was close enough to touch Steve. He didn’t touch him, though. “Hey, if this is too much or if it’s not what you want, you have to tell me. I’ll be okay with it, if you do.”

Steve said nothing, just leaned close and kissed Tony’s lips without otherwise touching him. Besides kissing back, Tony didn’t move at all. Steve touched his face, tracing his neatly trimmed beard with a finger as his tongue touched Tony’s lips. Tony opened his mouth and let Steve do as he wished. 

Steve took one more step, closing in so much that their bodies were nearly flush. He put his left arm around Tony and pulled him against his own body. Tony felt Steve’s cock hard against him.

“You taste good,” Tony murmured against Steve’s mouth. He did, though Tony wasn’t sure what it was…wholesomeness, perhaps? 

“I want to taste more of you,” Steve said and backed up enough to jerk Tony’s shirt over his head and throw it toward a chair. Tony found himself holding his breath as Steve ran his hands over Tony’s shoulders and back before pulling him close and kissing him again. He trailed kisses across his face to his neck, where he nipped the skin almost playfully before soothing it with his tongue. Tony groaned. 

He traced the Arc Reactor with a finger as his mouth returned to Tony’s for another kiss.

Steve didn’t stop as Tony tugged at his shirt, pulling it up and running his hands over Steve’s broad, muscled chest. Tony pulled away for a moment and finished removing Steve’s shirt. 

“My father was right. He said one time that when you came out of that machine, you looked like a god.”

He was surprised at Steve’s laugh. “No, not a god. Your father was fond of grand images. I’m still just a man.” 

“Not just a man at all,” Tony retorted as he reached for the button on Steve’s jeans. Steve didn’t move, allowing Tony to unbutton and unzip him. He wore nothing underneath, which pleased Tony when Steve’s cock was freed. Tony knew he was staring, but Steve was magnificent, all of him.

“If you say so. Your pants, take them off, too.” 

Tony’s eyes never left Steve as he dropped his own trousers and kicked them away. Tony didn’t give Steve a chance to do or say anything else as he dropped to his knees on the floor. He reached out and touched Steve reverently. 

“Tony.” Steve uttered his name. He usually called him Stark. The sound of his given name made him feel even hotter, if that was even possible. He leaned forward, close enough for his lips to touch Steve. He kissed his abdomen just above the patch of dark, wiry hair around his penis. He smelled not of testosterone and sweat, but clean. Of course he would, Tony thought to himself, as he ran a finger up the bottom of Steve’s penis, catching the clear drop of fluid on the tip and bringing it to his lips. It was salty and sweet at the same time. He darted his tongue out to taste it again at the source, licking the tiny opening with the tip of his tongue. “Tony,” Steve ground out again.

“Have you tasted yourself?” Tony asked as he gathered another drop on his finger. He raised his hand up to Steve’s mouth, having to stretch a little since Steve was so tall. Steve licked his finger then sucked it into his mouth. His tongue wrapped around it and caressed it. “Good god, Rogers, if you’re going to make me feel this way just sucking my finger, I may die if you touch anything else.” 

Steve smiled, a real smile, not one of the sad ones that Tony usually saw. “Let’s move to the sofa. It’ll be more comfortable.”

Tony wasn’t too sure about the comfort, but he did like the idea. Steve sat and Tony knelt between his legs and kissed him again. 

“How did I not know I wanted this?” Steve said a little breathlessly as he watched Tony lap at his cock with broad strokes of his tongue. 

Then Tony stopped teasing and playing. He took Steve deeply into his mouth and he did all the things he loved done to him, using his hand as well as his tongue to pleasure Steve. He made an appreciative sound when Steve’s hips lifted a little from his seat as his leg muscles tightened and Steve grabbed the fabric of the sofa cushions on either side of him. 

Tony ever so gently caressed Steve’s tight testicles as he sucked and licked him. He grinned around his mouthful when Steve actually whimpered. He continued, moving his mouth faster as he felt Steve tense more and more, heard his breathing becoming quicker, shallower. 

“I’m gonna come,” Steve whispered, putting his hand on Tony’s head, mussing his dark hair. “Ohhh!” he cried out as his body went rigid for a moment, then he said Tony’s name over and over as he filled his mouth. 

Tony swallowed and licked until Steve was still and gasping for breath. He moved up beside Steve on the sofa. “Do it to me, please,” he said as he took Steve’s hand and moved toward his own needy erection. “Now. I can’t wait.” 

Steve wrapped his hand around Tony and leaned close to kiss him. He began to move his hand up and down as he kissed his way down the front of Tony’s body. Without much teasing, he took Tony into his mouth. 

“Fuck!” Tony hissed as he thrust his hips upward. “I didn’t expect this, not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s so good. Your mouth, god, it’s hot, oh, Steve, fuck, yes,” he chattered. 

Steve paused. “Hush, Tony.” He grinned and went back at it. Tony bit his lip to keep from talking. He watched. Steve had his eyes closed as he sucked and licked Tony. 

Tony made a sound, trying hard not to say anything but it felt so good, he was so close, then he came, hard, intensely. “Steve,” he whispered. 

When he was done, Steve simply lay his head in Tony’s lap. His eyes were still closed, almost as if he didn’t want to know where he was. 

Tony touched his face. “Hey,” he whispered, “are you all right?” 

Steve looked at him and smiled. “Yeah. A lot has happened and I’m not sure what to make of it.” 

“I know.”

“I should get going. I can’t stay here. You won’t want them to know about…” He waved his arm indicating the two of them. 

“Why not?”

“It might make a difference in how we work together.”

“It might not. If you want to stay, I’m okay with it. JARVIS can wake you early if you want to slip back into your apartment before the others are up.”

Steve nodded. Tony suspected Steve really didn’t want to be alone tonight. He knew he didn’t.

They watched the late news, and rummaged for something to eat. They found some chips and cookies so they ate those, returning to the sofa. They sat close together, with Steve’s arm around Tony’s shoulders.

Tony fell asleep leaned against Steve. 

*

“So tell me what is going on with you and Stark,” Natasha said to Steve in the kitchen the next day. She was making coffee and he was cutting up some peaches for breakfast. 

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because the two of you have spent the last two nights together.” 

“Spying?” Steve was okay with it. He and Natasha had a good friendship and when either of them had needed a little more than that, they had that, too. If she needed to know what was going on with him, he didn’t feel she was out of line. 

“Little bit, yeah.” She grinned. 

“I’m not sure what’s going on.”

“Sex?”

“Um, yeah. Sex.”

“Oh God, you and Stark?! I’ll bet sparks fly there.” Natasha was really enjoying this. “More than sex?”

“That’s the part I’m not sure about.”

“For you or him?” 

“Him.”

“Jesus, Steve, are you serious about him?” Natasha looked really surprised. 

He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe.” 

“Hmmm,” she said, rather noncommittally. 

“I can’t talk here.” 

Steve was extremely private and Natasha knew that even as good friends as they were, it was hard for him to talk to her about something so personal. 

“Come to my apartment and talk to me,” she said. 

“I’ll meet you after we eat. I’m starving.”

She grinned at him. She knew he always ate like a horse, but after sex, he was always even more ravenous. She wiggled her eyebrows at him and mouthed, “Later.”

An hour later, Steve went into Natasha’s quarters. 

“Full?” she asked, pouring herself another cup of coffee. “Want one?” 

“I’m good.”

“Okay, tell me, how did this happen?”

“He came to apologize for being an ass and the next thing I know, he’s kissing me. And I liked it. The next night, things went a little further.” 

“I know that you told me you had been with guys before. Why was Stark’s kiss such a shock?”

“They fucked me, N’tasha. They didn’t kiss me.”

An odd look crossed her face, but she understood what he meant. “Oh.” 

Steve saw the look but didn’t say anything. 

“Is he good? I have to ask.”

“I – well, I don’t know. Not sure what to say. He’s really kind of sweet and he never stops talking.”

“Then you haven’t …?” 

“No. I’m pretty sure he, um, wants me to bottom and I think he’s scared to ask me.”

“Is that what you want?” 

He blushed and Natasha was amazed that this man she’d shared a bed with on quite a few occasions could be so shy. He was not the least bit shy when he was _in_ bed, just out of it, apparently.

“Then it is?” she pressed. 

He nodded. “I think so.”

She grinned. “Then tell him. Tony is a control freak, even worse than me.”

He kissed her cheek. “I bottom with you, too,” he said. 

“I know that, but I wasn’t sure that you did.” She laughed as she said it. 

“You’re a bossy woman and a control freak. I like letting someone else be in control. It’s one less thing I have to be responsible for.” 

She hugged him.

 

*

Nick Fury came to New York to talk business.

“I’d like Cap and Natasha back in DC,” Fury told Stark. “They do still work for SHIELD and I need them there.”

“I need them here. We can move quickly on threats and I can dink around and improve their gear when they’re in the same building,” Stark argued. “Besides, having us all under one roof builds team unity.”

“I hear you’re even more interesting in ‘dinking’ around with Rogers than with the suits.” He made the little quote marks with his fingers.

Stark saw Steve clench his jaw. He wasn’t too happy himself, not that anyone knew about him and Steve. That was between the two of them. He was angry that Fury had made it his business. 

“If I am, so what?”

“SHIELD might see it as a way you could be compromised by people who seek to expose this ‘dinking’.”

“You actually think I care if someone knows?” 

“Captain Rogers might care,” Fury said. 

“Director Fury, I can’t see that my personal life is any of your or SHIELD’s business. You haven’t lectured me for having relationships with other people,” Steve said. “Right now, I want to stay here. The reason doesn’t matter. If you need me, I’m there and you know that as well as I do.”

“I can transfer you whether you want me to or not,” Fury said to Steve. It was clear that Fury didn’t like to have his authority challenged, even by Steve Rogers. 

“I can quit,” Steve ground out. He was angry, too. 

“Are you sure?” 

“What the hell does that mean?” 

Suddenly, Fury did an about face, not willing to argue with either of them anymore. “You can stay here. For now! If you have to know, it’s the World Security Council who has a problem. They think a relationship with Stark could compromise you both.” 

“I’m not a risk unless I touch Cap’s dick?” Stark asked, as angry as anyone had ever seen him. 

Steve was so angry that he didn’t even blush at Stark’s statement. 

Fury tried again. “You know I don’t give a shit what you do, but they do. Be careful.” And he left without another word, leaving Tony and Steve standing there, perplexed. 

“What the fuck?” Tony asked. 

“Who knows? Jesus, Tony, we’ve only been together for three days.” 

“They all know. No way to live in a house and not know what goes on inside it, even one this big.” 

“But would anyone tell?” 

“No, but there could be bugs. You know how SHIELD watches you.”

Steve felt stupid for not thinking of it before. 

“JARVIS, do a sweep for electronic bugging devices, both active and non-active ones.”

“Of course, sir,” came the British accented reply. 

Tony turned to Steve. “Would you really quit?” He didn’t add ‘for me,’ but they both knew it was implied. 

“Yeah. I might be unique since I’m the only one of me there is, but I am not SHIELD’S property. I have a right to a life and to be with whoever I want to.”

JARVIS spoke. “Sir, I completed the sweep. There are devices in the apartments and in common areas. They appear to have been added since the battle of New York.” 

“Did you disable them?” 

“I was awaiting your order to do so, sir.”

“Do it. And while you’re at it, add scanning for that particular device to your sweep.” 

“Of course.”

Tony turned to Steve. “Now, what was that about being with whoever you want?” 

“You know what I meant.” Steve was going to make him work for it. 

“Let’s go somewhere -”

“More private? Isn’t that what we thought we had in our own quarters?” Steve asked, though the question was mostly rhetorical. 

“Somewhere not here, I meant.”

“And?” Steve was still angry, though not at Tony. 

Tony leaned close enough to whisper in his ear. “I’ll fuck you silly like everyone thinks I’m doing anyway.” 

Steve turned his head just enough to kiss Tony’s lips. “Promise?”

Tony felt a thrill run through him. “God, yes.” 

Tony spoke to JARVIS. “Book us a room somewhere here in Manhattan, somewhere no one would think I’d stay, but no fleabags.” 

“Yes, sir. How long will you be staying?” 

“Three nights, starting tonight. Try to keep it secret. Don’t use my name.”

“Yes, sir.” 

“Pack whatever you need for three days and let’s go,” Tony told Steve. 

JARVIS booked them in a decent chain hotel, nothing too luxurious but certainly not a ‘fleabag’. Happy took them in one of the plain sedans that Stark Industries kept at the Tower. They had some clothes, Tony’s credit cards and a couple of big bottles of lube. Steve was nervous. Tony was a basket case. 

When they got to their room, Steve put his bag down and sat on the bed, bouncing a little. “Well, it’s soft. Do you like soft beds? You know, we kind of haven’t spent much time together.”

“We’ve spent time, but most of it naked.” Tony put his bag on the dresser. 

“I like being naked with you, Stark. It’s better than fighting monsters and aliens any day of the week. That’s pretty much all I’ve ever done since the serum.” 

“You hungry? We can order out. We can watch tv.”

“Tony, are you nervous?” Steve realized that his chatter was less rapid fire and more avoidance than usual. 

“Yeah. A little.”

“Of me?”

“Of what I want to do to you. I’ve never actually done it to a man before.”

Steve was surprised. He couldn’t imagine Tony ever letting someone else be in control of him that much. “And you want to fuck me? Why not the other way around?”

“I don’t know. It’s what I need to do. I need to make you mine.”

While Steve was intrigued, he was also glad for the stalling tactic. He was nervous, too. He’d never been with a man he cared about, and whether he liked it or not, he did care for Tony Stark. He remembered pain and embarrassment mostly in the act, and he didn’t want feel either of those with Stark. 

“Yours? As in a possession?” Steve asked Tony. 

“No, never. Mine as in someone I -” he stopped and looked around, as if the word he was trying not to say was floating in front of him. “I don’t want you to be with other people, not with Maria Hill, not with Sharon Carter, not even Natasha.” He paused, licked his lip and looked away in that way he did when he was saying something emotional or important. “I want to be inside you, to show you how much I need you, how much I care.” 

Steve knew that this was as close as Stark would likely ever come to a declaration of love. Steve knew he, himself, wouldn’t be able to say the words easily, either. “I want to give you that,” he said quietly as Tony sat beside him. He put an arm around Stark’s shoulder and turned to him. “I want to _feel_ you inside me, Tony. Now.” 

He kissed Tony and moved his bag to the floor, then went to work on Tony’s clothes. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it aside, touching the skin around the Arc Reactor with one hand as the other hand rubbed Stark’s already hard cock through his trousers. Steve continued to kiss him as Tony began working the buttons on Steve’s shirt. Once the buttons were undone, Tony teased flat nipples with his fingers. 

Steve made a sound when Tony’s hand slipped inside his jeans to touch him. 

“Your skin is always so hot to touch,” Tony whispered against his mouth. 

Steve tugged at Tony’s pants and, when Tony lifted his hips off the bed to accommodate him, he pulled them down. Steve was still leaning over and kissing Tony as he stood and pushed his own jeans to the floor. He gently shoved Tony back onto the bed. 

Once the discarded clothes were out of the way, they lay on the bed, Tony on his back and Steve on top, grinding his hips against Tony’s. He looked down into Tony’s dark eyes. 

“Now, I want you now,” Steve said.

“My bag, we need it.”

Steve hurriedly got up and grabbed it from the dresser and Tony ripped into it, grabbing the bottles he’d dropped in. 

Steve moved onto his elbows and knees. 

“Let’s see if we can work it face-to-face. I want to watch you while I fuck you,” Tony said. Steve rolled over to face him. Tony poured some of the gel onto his hands and found Steve’s tight little opening. He rubbed the gel on the outside then slipped a finger in slowly, biting his own lip at the small sounds Steve was trying not to make. Steve relaxed and the second finger went in easier and the noises were louder this time. 

Steve moved to the edge of the tall bed so Tony would be able to stand beside the bed, an easier fit for them to be able to face one another. Tony rubbed the gel on himself and more on Steve. Steve bit his lip as Tony pressed against his opening, but there was very little pain, just a little extra stretching when Tony pressed inside. 

“God!” Tony ground out as he pushed all the way in. “You’re hotter inside than out. Fuck, Steve.” 

Steve brought his hand down touch himself as Tony began to thrust. Steve watched Tony as he closed his eyes. 

He’d closed his eyes because Steve was so tight and hot that Tony felt more than a little out of control. The whole thing was more intense than he’d expected. He needed to move faster, harder, but - 

“I won’t break,” Steve said, as if reading his mind. “Please, Tony, harder.” 

Tony gave him his all as he thrust hard and deep, moving faster as he pressed to find that bliss they both chased. He put his hand over Steve’s and stroked along with him, holding tight to Steve’s right leg with the other hand. He leaned in, moving to brace himself on the bed, hand still on Steve’s cock between them. 

Steve wrapped his legs around Tony’s back, forcing him closer. He was buried deep and Steve held him so tight that all he could do was rock into Steve, and Steve somehow managed to hold him tighter still, inside and out. It was Tony’s undoing as he came, oblivious to all but the sensations he felt and the man beneath him. Steve hadn’t stopped his own hand moving yet and Tony finally had enough presence of mind to help him again. Tony saw the pleasure in his eyes and felt the warmth of Steve’s semen spread between them, as he heard Steve’s soft grunts of pleasure. 

They were still for a few moments, trying to regain their breath, then Tony moved out of Steve. They moved up onto the bed side by side, both staring at the ceiling.

When Tony started to speak, Steve rolled over and put a finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything. Just look at me.” 

Tony turned facing Steve and looked into his eyes. “You’re like a drug,” Tony finally said, “a drug I never want to be without.” 

Steve just hugged him. “You’re full of crap, but I kinda feel the same way.” 

Their three days were exhilarating and exhausting. Tony was sure he’d never actually had that many orgasms in so few days since he was thirteen. If Steve lacked experience at all, he more than made up for it in strength and endurance. 

 

* 

Idylls do not last. And Tony and Steve’s didn’t. 

Things happened and the world intervened in their lives in ways they’d never have seen coming. Their lives diverged when Steve and Natasha were transferred to Washington. Even though they made promises and had good intentions, Steve and Tony didn’t see one another often for quite some time. 

Steve became ensnared in the fall of SHIELD. In the middle of the entire operation was his friend, Bucky, who had transformed into a deadly HYDRA operative called the Winter Soldier. The final shakedown left him with few answers and fewer people he felt he could trust. 

Steve spent a lot of his time with Natasha, both of them needing comfort and someone to depend on in an uncertain world. It wasn’t the first they’d turned to one another for comfort. 

Tony had moved back to California with Pepper and had his own deadly adventures with Aldrich Killian and his Extremis serum. In the end, he’d had the Arc Reactor removed and vowed to change his life, though he knew in his heart that he could never stop being Iron Man. 

Though Steve and Tony talked and even had an assignation now and again, they had gone on with their lives apart. Neither one ever stopped thinking of the other, though they never said as much to one another. The love had not faded as much as it had been put on hold.

The two men ended up back working together when Loki’s scepter surfaced in the possession of one Baron Von Strucker, an ageless monster from Nazi Germany. He was using it to create a new generation of monsters with superhuman abilities. After they retrieved the scepter, the Avengers all went back to New York.

Tony was going to throw a big party at Stark Tower and most of the Avengers were already staying there. Even Thor was there, as he’d helped recover the scepter. 

Steve felt almost shy around Tony. Though they’d met up a few times over the last couple of years, and the hurried, frantic lovemaking was as good as it ever had been, they were not part of one anothers' daily lives anymore. This didn’t seem to diminish the real affection they felt, but it was easy to move on to other things when they didn’t see one another very often at all.

This night was different. Pepper and Tony were not an item any more (though that happened fairly often). Natasha had her eye on Bruce Banner and she’d told Steve how much she liked him. Banner seemed to have his eye on her as well. 

Tony showed up at Steve’s door. Steve was glad to see him, very glad. He pulled Tony inside, slammed the door and pushed Tony against the closed door. He kissed Tony feverishly, so much so that Tony forgot that he’d come to ask Steve about Barnes. They stood against the door, dry humping one another like teenage boys until Steve pulled back and almost dragged a willing Stark to his bedroom.

They were naked in less than a minute and Tony buried himself inside a begging Steve moments later. Only a few more minutes passed until they lay side by side, catching their breath. 

“God, I’ve missed you, missed this,” Tony said. 

“Yeah. Me, too.” Steve moved closer, pulled Tony into his arms. “I didn’t know there for a while if I’d ever see you again. I could feel it. Natasha and Sam said you were fine, but I worried. I knew you weren’t dead, though.” 

“It was an eye opener. Imagine me in the sticks with almost no technology! Oh, I heard that Barnes is still alive.”

“He is, but he doesn’t seem to remember who he is. He saved me when I fell in the lake after we fought on the Helicarrier.”

“I guess it turned out that as big an ass as Fury is, he and Maria Hill were the only good guys left at SHIELD.” 

“There were a lot of good people there. More than a few of them died. By the way, I heard you hired Maria Hill.” 

“Yep. She’s a smart and efficient person. What are you doing now, Steve?” 

“I’m working for you, too, apparently. Actually, I also have this pension from my years in the Army and in SHIELD, but it’s not a lot. Maria and some of your lawyers got me some back pay for my ice time, so I can afford an apartment and all that. I guess I’m still an Avenger, what with there being no SHIELD at the moment.”

Things might have been different if Tony had spent more time in bed with Steve and less time with Bruce trying to figure out what the stone in the scepter was, or trying to save the world by building an army of suits to guard against threats instead of fighting the threats when they happened. 

But Tony and Bruce did create Ultron. And things went very badly. In order to save the world, the Avengers wreaked havoc on a small country named Sokovia and this had finally pushed the UN into forcing enhanced individuals to sign the Sokovia Accords. 

That is where _everything_ fell apart.

*

“I’m not going to sign the damned things and that is that.” They were sitting at a table in the Avengers complex, in the cafeteria, to be exact. Steve had that stubborn look on his face that said he would not be moved. 

Tony was frustrated that Steve simply didn’t seem to understand their importance and told him so. 

Steve continued. “You think it’s good because you and Banner made Ultron, Tony. That is all on you two. You wanted to wipe out trouble _before_ it began, just like SHIELD did with Project Insight. I feel terrible about the innocents who died, but those numbers pale in comparison to what SHIELD meant to do or what Ultron meant to do.”

When Tony started to say something, Steve held up his hand. “I’m not done. I won’t submit to control of jackasses like Ross and governments with agendas that have nothing whatsoever to do with the good of the people, just to assuage your guilt over creating a monster.”

“That woman who came to see me, you didn’t see her face. _I_ killed her son. Me. I made an innocent man die.” Tony was truly shaken by this woman and her pain. 

“Soldiers do it all the time, Tony. It is part of the awful cost of war.” 

“But I’m not a damned soldier!” 

“Dammit, Tony, you are. When you built that suit and started fighting evil threats, you became a soldier. Just like me.”

“Just sign the Accords, Steve.” 

Tony had come to the Avengers headquarters to talk to Steve about what happened in Nigeria. Wanda had caused several innocent Wakandans to die when she used her near limitless powers against Brock Rumlow. Tony knew that things were going to go badly if Steve didn’t sign the Sokovia Accords. He was prepared to beg. 

“Can we just take a few hours and not talk about it?” Tony asked. He sounded tired. 

Steve was still angry, but he’d had so little time with Stark since Sokovia, that he nodded in agreement. The guilt had eaten away at Stark, made him question his own motives. Steve had become as adamant the other way. He was more determined than ever to remain free and to make his own choices. 

Tony reached for his hand under the table. “Maybe a few minutes alone somewhere?” 

They left the cafeteria and went to Steve’s quarters. “Lock the door behind you,” he told Stark with a smile. The words echoed what Stark told him at one of their first times as lovers. 

After the door was locked, Steve kissed Tony and looked into his face. Tony looked older, a bit more worn. So did he. 

“Let’s not talk for a while,” Stark suggested. Steve smiled at the alien concept coming from Stark. 

“Whatever you say,” he murmured as he eased Tony back toward the sofa. Tony stood with the backs of his knees against the sofa as Steve began to undress him, kissing his lips between every piece of clothing and kissing every bit of skin he exposed in the process as well. Tony didn’t move, didn’t speak at all. Once Stark was naked, Steve pushed him to sit. His eyes never left Stark’s as he removed his own clothes.

He dropped to the floor and pulled Stark forward in an embrace. It felt so good, skin against skin. Nothing between them, no one between them. They weren’t hurried this time. Tony was a little surprised when he saw that Steve intended to take him this time, a deviation from all their previous times together. It was every bit as intoxicating as before and left them both breathless and quiet when it was done. 

“I love you, Cap,” Tony said very quietly, then he pulled Steve close as they slouched on Steve’s sofa. 

Steve wasn’t sure what to say. Of course he loved Tony, but he’d never said it before. “What are we going to do?” 

“Dunno. I think it’s going to be bad. Please understand that I care, no matter what happens.”

Steve knew then that Tony was going to side with Ross and the UN, even if it meant their relationship was done. He stood up and led Tony to his bed. He spent the night showing Tony Stark how much he loved him. 

But he never said the words.

The news came in the next morning that Peggy Carter had died. 

Steve knew that Tony and some of the others were going to Vienna, where the Accords were to be ratified. He flew to London instead to say goodbye to the love of his life. One of them, anyway. Sam went with him. He had become an Avenger because of his friendship with Steve and he’d stick by him. 

He’d never known that Sharon Carter had been Peggy’s niece until she got up at the service. She spoke about her aunt:

_…she said, compromise when you can. Where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move. It is your duty, to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say, "No, you move.”_

That was his Peggy. He knew then that he would not compromise, even for Tony. If he did, then he betrayed everything he’d ever stood for. 

That was when it all truly went to hell. 

In Vienna, someone who looked like Bucky killed King T’Chaka. His son, T’Challa, vowed vengeance and everyone went after Barnes. Steve decided that he needed to find Barnes before anyone else did.

Neither of them ever thought it would be so ugly or so painful, but they were both men of conviction and passion. Neither of them could back down, so they landed on opposite sides of a very personal war. 

There was nothing to be said or done after that. They fought and fought and Steve won. 

They both lost. 

Everything. 

One another. 

The fallout from their war left them both changed, angry. 

Tony kept telling himself that he was more angry at what Steve had not told him about the death of his parents, but the truth was that he was brokenhearted that Steve had chosen Barnes instead of him. 

Steve did the only thing he actually knew how to do: he fought. He banded together with Natasha and Sam and they began to fight the same battles they would have had they still been Avengers. Being a soldier was all Steve knew how to do. 

The letter and the phone let Tony know that it was not forever. Maybe. 

He never let either out of his sight.


	2. Part Two

Part Two 

Tony had finally gone back to Pepper but his heart really wasn’t in it and she knew it. She was all right with being his public girlfriend. She probably owed him that much. She knew he’d managed somehow to fall in love with Steve Rogers. She also knew his heart was broken. 

“You could find him and try to make it better, you know,” she told him one evening on their way back from a gala. “Sleeping with young men that look like him is going to backfire sometime.” 

He’d been surprised she knew that he’d been doing that and told her so, after trying to deny it at first. 

“How long?” Tony asked her. 

“How long what? Have I known? Since the battle of New York. You hung on his every word and followed him around like a puppy. When you weren’t with him, you talked about him all the time. And one night, in bed with me, you called me Steve and never realized it.”

“Shit, Pepper, I’m sorry. You are right though. I do love him still. But he would never come back to me. I could never admit that I was wrong. And he made his choice. He chose Barnes. He loves Barnes more than me.”

“Barnes was his past, the one person left from the past. You know as well as I do that a person can love lots of people in a lifetime. Love is not pie, Tony.”

“That’s cute. You should make a meme or card.”

“Things are not always so simple. Find him.”

“Oh, I know where he is. I’ve known from the beginning. Barnes, too. Who do you think finances the raids he, Wilson and Romanov make?”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“He has his pride and I have mine. I can’t.”

“God, men and their stupid pride. I’ll never understand it,” she said, seemingly exasperated, but she kissed Tony on the cheek. Happy opened the door for her and she stuck her head back in. “Go find him, Tony. Fix this.” 

Half a world away, Steve Rogers was asleep in Natasha Romanov’s arms. They’d just finished a mission and he’d been banged up pretty good. Natasha had patched him up, kissed his booboos and then kissed a few more places, and now he was snoring away. 

She was thinking about him and Stark. Since their split, Steve had become more cynical, angrier. He’d always carried a little tiny kernel of rage at the fact that he’d been denied a real life, something she knew more than anyone about. She saw the sadness in him, the disappointment in himself. She wished she could get him to contact Stark. 

 

* 

One year turned into two years and one day, long after Natasha had given up, his phone rang. 

It was Bruce Banner and he explained what he knew. Tony was gone. The same alien who had gotten Loki to attack Earth before was back and he meant to kill half of the population of the galaxy. His name was Thanos and all he needed to complete this mission was the Mind Stone in Vision’s head. 

Stark had gone somewhere with Stephen Strange on one of Thanos’ spaceships. 

Steve was beside himself with worry. He, Natasha and Sam went to find Wanda and Vision. They found more than they counted on when members of the Dark Order showed up before them to try to take the Mind Stone from Vision. They sent them packing, but he knew they’d be back. And they’d come with reinforcements. 

They took off for New York and Avenger headquarters. Rhodey was glad to see them. Ross was there on a video feed, blathering about war crimes and things that Steve didn’t give a tinker’s damn about right now. He needed to find Tony Stark and he needed to save the people of earth from Thanos. 

Things were a little weird when Banner came out. Everyone there knew that Steve and Natasha had been together since the big falling out with Stark. 

“Well, this is awkward,” Sam murmured, always with the running commentary. 

Bruce was no fool and assessed the situation pretty quickly. He had run away because he couldn’t give himself entirely to Natasha and he hoped Steve had, but he suspected from what Stark had said that was not quite the truth of it either. 

‘We fell out hard… we’re toast’ Tony had said. There’d been something in his look that seemed a bit odd to Bruce. Hmmm… 

Stark and Rogers? Yeah, he could see that in the way Tony acted. He felt a little foolish that he’d not seen it before. 

Rhodey, it turned out, wasn’t too worried about Ross either and at Steve’s urging, they set out for Wakanda. While Natasha raked Wanda over the coals a little more for going off the grid, Steve talked to Bruce. 

“Tell me more about what happened.” 

“I was on the Asgardian refugee ship. Thor and I had gone to Asgard to save it, but that didn’t work out. Thanos killed Loki then Thor. Heimdall sent me through the Bifrost to save me. I landed in the Sanctum. Thanos’ ship arrived here with his evil servants. He calls them children. They took Strange and Tony followed onto the ship and it’s gone.”

“God, Tony.” He just sat there for a moment or two, speechless. “We have to get him back and fix this. We have to.” 

Bruce touched his arm. Steve looked at him, surprised for a moment, then nodded. 

The war was short and ugly and they lost. They had been joined on the battle field by Thor, who had survived after all, and brought a sentient raccoon named Rocket and a talking tree with him. For a little while, it looked as they would win the day and defeat the evil Titan, but it was not to be yet. The entire galaxy lost to Thanos and his maniacal need to set the universe right by killing half of its population in one horrible blow, using the Infinity Gauntlet with the six Infinity Stones to blink them out of existence. 

Steve was devastated. Even in his darkest hour, he had always believed that right would win. 

 

*

When all was done and Stark was left on Titan with Nebula, he fell apart. Losing Peter Parker had shaken him to his core, even more than what he suspected was a mortal wound he’d suffered from Thanos. He was the reason the boy came along in the first place. Nebula looked at him as if he were a bug, then shrugged, lifted him and put him on the small ship she had come in. It had taken a little damage, but it still worked. 

“We will go to your Earth, Stark. Maybe they can help you. Or maybe you can at least die among your people. At least you still have people.”

“Gee, thanks.” Even in the face of certain death, Tony could not stop his sarcasm. 

Back on earth, Steve Rogers was distraught. No one had ever seen him this way. He didn’t sleep, eat, nor would he talk to anyone. He was drowning in guilt and sorrow, and didn’t know how to handle any of it. 

“Talk to him, Natasha,” Bruce implored. 

“He’s not talking. I’ve tried. He’s lost so much - Bucky, Tony and the awful defeat.” 

She went to Steve anyway. “You need to eat something and get some rest, Rogers.” She sat down beside him. “Shuri says she can give something that will work on you to rest, if you want it.” 

He turned slowly and looked at her. “Does she have a drug to fix this mess? Can she offer me hope, Natasha?” 

Natasha moved closer and put an arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “You have to find the hope yourself, Steve. It’s there… it’s small but it’s there. I love you and don’t want to lose you, too. Please.” She felt like an idiot for begging, but real friends were hard to come by.

He looked at her and the damn inside him finally broke. He pulled her into his arms and cried. His sobs were heart wrenching for her to see and hear. Natasha held him, running her hands over his strong back and smoothing his tangled hair. He cried wordlessly until he must have cried out, then he went to sleep in her arms on the sofa. She scooted back so he would be more comfortable and held him while he slept. 

Hours later, the need to go to the bathroom finally made Natasha get up. She moved slowly and carefully and Steve barely stirred. When she came back, he was sitting up. He looked a little embarrassed when she sat beside him. 

“Can I interest you in a shower and some clothes that don’t smell like you died in them?” she asked him. 

He almost smiled. “Only if you come with me.”

She laughed. “You made a joke. A bad one but a joke. But if that’s what it takes, yeah.” 

“I think I can handle it myself.” 

“You’re breaking my heart! I wanted to get naked with the smelliest man on earth!”

He finally grabbed some clothes from his bag, which had been brought in for them from their Quinjet. Natasha stayed in his room and waited while he showered. 

Steve was dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt when he came out, toweling his longish hair. 

“Hungry?” Natasha asked.

“Not much, but I guess I should eat something.” 

“You need to get that place looked at, too.” She pointed to a really nasty weapon burn on his side.

He let her take him to a cafeteria Shuri’s mother had set up for the extra warriors and he ate the first real meal he’d had in days. Nat was hungry and had breakfast with him. 

He agreed to go to the infirmary to get patched up after they ate. His injury was ugly and painful but it was not deep. The doctor cleaned it and healed it with the nanotech that they’d saved Agent Ross with when he’d been injured fighting against Killmonger and Klaue when T’Challa had been challenged as king a few months prior.

Steve and Natasha finally went to a room where Thor, Shuri, Rocket, Banner, Rhodey and several Wakandan military officers sat around a table. They were all that remained of the group of heroes and soldiers who’d gathered in Wakanda to protect the earth from Thanos. The rest had either died on the battlefield or been turned to dust.

“Glad you could join us, Rogers,” Thor said. Steve nodded to him and sat down. Thor clapped him on the back.

“We are talking about possible responses on our part,” Bruce said. “So far, we’ve kinda come up with zilch.” 

A young Wakandan came into the room and spoke quietly to Shuri. She asked a question or two then nodded. The tech left the room. 

“It would seem that our sensors have picked up something, possibly a ship, inbound from outside the solar system. No idea yet what it is. There seems to be only one of them, though. I have given the order to scramble fighters when it gets close enough. And to send out a message to them. Maybe they will answer.”

The message did get to them, to the tiny inbound ship that Nebula was piloting. 

“We have a message from Earth,” she called back to Tony, who was drifting in and out of a dazed sleep.. 

“Send back this: ‘Steve, I’m so sorry. I’m coming home,’” Tony told her. 

She nodded and sent it. She had hooked the human up to what little lifesaving equipment she had available on the tiny ship. The life support system was keeping him alive and conscious but only just. If they were lucky, it might keep him alive until they reached Earth. Once there, she didn’t know if they had the technology to save him. It might be a good thing. He never seemed to stop talking. Even noisy Peter Quill didn’t talk that much! All his chattering made her head hurt. 

It took several hours for the message to get to Earth and even then, it was not a very clear message, with only a few words coming through: Steve, sorry, and home. Steve, who hadn’t left the communication room since they sent the outgoing message, knew, even from the few words, that it was Tony. 

Cleaned up by Wakanda’s very advanced equipment, the message said it was indeed Tony and he was coming home.

Natasha was holding Steve’s hand when the message was read and felt him shaking like a leaf. He was holding his breath. He finally took a breath and said in a low voice, almost a whisper, “Oh god, he’s alive.” Natasha didn’t miss the tear that ran down his face.

It was the next evening before the little ship finally landed in Wakanda, escorted in by several Wakanda interceptors. Nebula carried Stark off the plane. 

Steve couldn’t move, couldn’t feel his legs, couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t until Thor and Banner were each holding an arm that he realized he’d almost fainted. He took a deep breath and felt the feeling come back into his body, felt his strength return with the oxygen in his lungs. 

“Steve,” Tony whispered in a very low voice. “I was afraid I’d never see you again. I’m so sorry.” 

Steve, no longer faint, stepped out in front of Banner and Thor and walked up to the alien woman. 

“Is he yours? He has babbled about a Steve for days. Are you a Steve?” she asked, clearly annoyed with Tony and him, too, by proxy.

“I am indeed a Steve and he is mine,” he told her and took her burden from her. 

[](https://imgur.com/wEbC0ii)

“Hurry with him if you have good medical technology. He will die soon if repairs are not made,” she urged Steve. “Not that I care,” she added as an afterthought. 

Steve took off with him, almost running to the medical wing of Shuri’s lab. Doctors met him at the doors. “We will take him from here, Captain Rogers.” 

“I’m not leaving him. You have to take me, too.” He stubbornly held onto his burden. 

When one young man started to argue, Shuri herself walked up. “That is all right, Dr. T’momi. Captain Rogers can come along.” 

She turned to Steve. “You can place him on the gurney, Captain. We will be very careful with him.” 

He laid his burden down carefully. “Please save him. I – I, please, don’t let him die.” 

The teenager smiled and patted his hand. “He will be all right, Captain Rogers. We have excellent doctors and medicine.” She paused and he saw the understanding in her eyes. “I know what he means to you.” 

Just as she had worked a seeming miracle on Agent Ross, she and her team saved Stark. He had lost a lot of blood and was weaker than Ross had been after his surgery, but he was ‘repaired,’ as Nebula called it. 

Shuri wanted to keep him in the medical wing for a few days. He needed blood and fluids, though whatever machine the alien woman had hooked him up to had worked fairly well in keeping him alive for the trip home. 

 

*

Tony woke up. He looked around. He was in some kind of hospital. He looked down and saw someone’s dark head on his bed. At first, he didn’t realize who it was. The man’s hair was long and dark, and he was bearded. Tony knew in a moment that it was Steve, his Steve. 

Steve was sleeping with his hand on Tony’s leg and his head on the bed. 

“Wake up, Cap.” Tony’s voice was raspy with disuse and his throat hurt a little from being so dry. 

Steve sat straight up and looked at Tony. The tears he’d held back so long fell. “Tony, I -”

“Not now. You don’t have to say anything.” 

“Shut up a minute and listen to me, Tony Stark. I love you. I loved you even when I hated you and I love you still. No matter what happens after this, I love you. Do you understand me?” 

Tony smiled, though it came out more a wince. “Got it. Ditto here. I love you, too. Never stopped. God, I missed you so much.” 

The bed was small, as many hospital beds were, but that did not deter Steve. He got up and moved Tony over just enough to get in the bed beside him. He was afraid to hold him until Tony cuddled close. Shuri giggled when she came in to check on Tony to find the two grown men in the bed together. 

“I see you are taking good care of him, Captain.” 

Steve managed to blush. 

“Don’t mind me. I just came to see how Mr. Stark is doing. He looks to be fine.” She looked at a tablet at the foot of the bed. “I want you well, Mr. Stark. I want to talk suits with you. I am Shuri, by the way. Our doctors and my technology fixed you right up.” 

She grinned at them and was gone as quickly as she arrived. 

“She is T’Challa’s sister. She is acting Queen right now. He turned to – dust.”

“I can’t – right now. Later?” Tony’s face went pale. Parker’s face kept floating in front of him. He couldn’t think about the boy yet.

“Me either. Not yet.” The sight of Bucky turning to dust as he spoke Steve’s name haunted his sleeping and waking. 

Steve held Tony through the night. Tony slept fitfully but they both slept. 

Tony stayed in the infirmary for two more days. When he was released, Steve took him to his quarters. 

“Did you ask me where I wanted to go?” Tony teased.

“Nope. I want you here where I can take care of you.” 

“If you think I’m going to let you play nurse, then you’re sadly mistaken.”

“That wasn’t the sort of play I had in mind, but you might need a little more rest first.”

“Hmmph!” 

They bantered quite a bit, but both men were nervous, about the things unsaid, and oddly enough, about sex. It had been long time. They both knew that the other had moved on, found other companionship, other lovers. It was the elephant in the room right now. 

On the first night, Tony snuggled up to Steve in his sleep. Steve didn’t sleep much at all, just held Tony. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed of Bucky, disappearing before his very eyes over and over. 

“Hey, Steve, it’s all right.” Tony was smoothing his hair and touching his face as he woke. 

“Just a nightmare,” Steve finally said. 

“Yeah, I – it’s the same here. When I sleep, I see them.”

There was no need to elaborate. Steve knew what he meant, knew they were dreaming about the same living nightmares. They both decided that sleep was done for the night and got up. 

“Do you need help with anything? Like a bath? Or food?” Steve wanted to be close to Tony, to touch him. 

Tony sighed and said, “Do we talk now? Or try to ignore it all and go on?” 

“I don’t know. What if talking drives us apart again? I am not sure I could bear that again.”

“It’s up to you. I’ve dealt with my demons, I think.” 

“What do I say? What do you want me to say?” Steve was haunted by so many things, going all the way back to WWII. His demons might have filled a stadium. 

“I need to say something. One thing. As angry as I was over Barnes killing my parents, I was more hurt that you chose him over me.” Tony wanted to look away, to get away from Steve’s hurt and anger, but he needed so badly to ‘clear the red out of his ledger,’ as Natasha would say. 

“He – they were going to lock him away, maybe kill him. I couldn’t let them do it. You have to understand that was why I did it,” Steve told him quietly. 

“He was ready to pay for his crimes.You know he was tired of running.”

“Tony, if I’d been able to save him on that train, then none of it would have happened. I failed him, the best friend I ever had. I caused him to become a monster. Me. It was all my fault. I had to save him this time. Failing him again was not an option, no matter the consequence for me.” He paused then added, “nor for you.”

Tony closed his eyes and just sat there a few moments after Steve’s rush of words ended. 

“You didn’t fail him. Why didn’t they tell you that you couldn’t save the whole world? Erskine and my father were so in love with their science and technology, they didn’t realize what they were doing to a skinny boy from Brooklyn, a boy who needed love, needed friendship. They used you for your goodness.”

“I still can’t see the world in shades of gray, Tony. There is good and bad, and somewhere over time, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten which side I’m on.”

Tony shook his head. “No, you haven’t and that’s your problem. You know you are on the side of good. The world has forgotten that sometimes there really is good and evil.”

“I never meant to hurt you. I meant to protect you.” Steve stared into space. “In the end, I couldn’t protect either of you.”

“I know. I knew it then on some level. But I wanted you to choose me without me having to choose you as well.”

“Is this helping?” Steve asked. He felt even more wounded and raw than he had before. 

“I don’t know, but it has to be done. If there is anything to forgive, I forgive you. Will you forgive me as well?” Tony moved to look Steve in the eye. 

“I forgave you a long time ago.”

Steve nodded. “Now what?”

“I’m going to take a shower, come back out here, and strip your clothes off. I want to touch every inch of your body and you, mine. After we can’t do it any longer, then I’ll take another shower, get dressed and you and I will go out there and figure out how to save the world, if it can be saved.”

“That sounds like a start, Tony. Are you sure you’re up to it?” 

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Steve only allowed Tony a few seconds in the shower alone, then he joined him. Both of them still looked battered and bruised. Steve’s burns were healed but there were scars. Tony had a scar where his chest had been pierced but the wound was gone, repaired by Shuri and her colleagues.

As soon as Steve stepped into the shower, bathing was forgotten as they embraced, kissing under the warm spray. Steve turned the shower spray down to a near trickle. 

“There. We don’t have to swallow water when we kiss,” he told Tony as he dipped his head and kissed him again. 

They kissed and kissed, as if drawing oxygen from one another until both were quite breathless. Tony reached for the soap and ran it over Steve’s body, leaving a soapy lather on his torso. He made his way lower, but didn’t bother with the soap there. He ran his hands over Steve’s water slicked abdomen and lower still, caressing him even as Steve shivered under his touch. 

“Your body is so perfect, but it pales in comparison to your heart, Steve Rogers. I missed your heart when you were gone.” He squeezed him quite gently, looked up into his face and said with a smile, “I missed this, too, I have to admit.” 

Steve grabbed him and pulled him close, kissing him hungrily as their wet bodies pressed against one another. He reached down between them, pressing Tony’s cock flat against his own belly, running his hand up and down the underside. 

“Mmmm, feels good,” Tony moaned. “Don’t stop.” 

He didn’t. 

They moved out of the shower eventually and to the bed. It was hours before the two slept, but they finally did, holding one another tight even in a deep sleep.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *

Part Three

All over the globe, people had turned to ash. 

Tony and Bruce joined Shuri in studying the ashes and talking about the science. Thor and Rocket were going to search out Stephen Strange’s colleague, Wong, to explore the elements of magic employed. Rocket felt he’d be of more use helping work on weaponry, but Thor was quite insistent that the ‘rabbit’ come along with him. Rhodey was returning to what there was of SHIELD to try to find out what he could. Steve and Natasha were going to work with the Wakandan military and intelligence to find out about and stop homegrown threats and assess new ones as they came along. 

“Strange was sure that we could win. He said there was a one in fourteen million six hundred and five chance. And when he gave the Time Stone up, he said it was the only way. That’s a damned slim chance, but it’s all we’ve got,” Tony told them all.

“But what does it mean?” Thor asked. 

“It means that Strange set us up to win, and we have to find out what he meant for us to do.”

“How the hell do we do that?” Natasha asked. 

“That is where Wong comes in. He might know something about time travel.” 

Bruce held up a hand. “You know, I remember some talk years ago about Hank Pym’s wife, Janet van Dyne, and some sort of Quantum Realm or something.” 

“Wasn’t Pym the guy who made the original Ant Man suit?” Tony asked. “I remember my father mentioning him. He used to be with SHIELD, too.” 

“Yeah, and he got Scott Lang to test the modern version,” Bruce answered.

“Anyone seen Lang since Thanos?” Steve asked. “He was under house arrest, but his sentence was about done.” 

”We’re going to see Wong. We can do some investigating on that as well,” Thor said. 

And so it began, another heroes’ journey to save the world. Each person began to work on his appointed task. 

 

*

There was so much pain and sorrow in the remaining world. Bad news came in every day, along with some good news as well. Some governments were failing, while others stepped up to help not only their citizens but those of other countries as well. Much of the world lived in terror that another disaster was looming. 

Tony and Bruce believed that reversing the damage done by the Gauntlet and Thanos might be the only answer. The trouble was that it would take time travel and no one really knew how to do that. 

Yet. 

Not knowing how to do something had not stopped any of them from trying to do it before, and it wasn’t going to this time either. 

Steve spent a lot of his time with Bruce and Tony simply because the Wakandans did not need his expertise to train. They were expert warriors already. He was much more interested in what Bruce, Tony and Shuri came up with anyway. 

“I tell you, Tony, there has to be some way that we can manipulate time. Strange could do it,” Bruce said. 

“He had the Time Stone, though. I agree that we need some way to go back in time and do something with those Stones. We know where some of them were in the past, all but the Soul Stone. Nebula might know that,” Tony said. 

“Thanos is going to come after us if we try to reverse what he did,” Steve told them. He might not know much of the science, but he did know some things.

“That’s why we need our warriors, too. It’ll take all of us to pull this off. All we need is a jumping off place,” Tony said.

“A way to time travel?” Steve asked. 

“Yep,” Bruce answered. “Simple, isn’t it?” 

Shuri spoke for the first time. “I heard you mention a Quantum Realm, is that right?” 

Bruce nodded. “Yes, there were rumors back in the 80’s, when I was a student, that Janet van Dyne was lost when she shrank so small that she was lost in the Quantum Realm. The only person we know for sure who could possibly get there is Scott Lang. He’s Ant Man.”

“I remember him when he was with Captain’s group when they fought Mr. Stark,” Shuri said. “I will check Wakanda’s database for any information on such things. Perhaps this Mr. Wong might know how to travel in time. I have heard that mystics are able to open pocket dimensions.”

Bruce looked at them for a second. “Maybe I’d better go with Thor and Rocket to talk to Wong.” 

Tony grinned. “We need you here, Bruce. Thor might not understand our science exactly but he’ll get it. That raccoon is a tech genius when it comes to weapons, though I’m not so sure about time machines.”

“What do we do with the Stones once we get them? Destroy them?” Bruce asked.

“Not sure we can. Remember when Wong said they were created at the creation of the universe? I don’t think we can unmake them.”

“So we can’t throw them into Mount Doom, then,” Bruce said, with a small smile. 

Tony looked a little puzzled, but both Steve and Shuri laughed. “What?” 

“You’ve never read Tolkien?” Shuri asked. “I see Captain Rogers has.” 

“Yeah, I read between fighting, or I used to.”

“You’re nerdy, too?” Tony looked at Steve with a grin. 

Shuri made a rude sound. “Watch who you’re calling nerdy, old man!” She laughed, a lovely tinkle of a laugh that reminded them all that there was still hope in the world. 

Shuri was such a delight. Steve had gotten to know her when her brother had brought Bucky to Wakanda to hide and to rehab from the trauma of knowing the things he’d done and to help him become Bucky again. 

That evening in bed, Tony asked Steve, “Have you really read Tolkien?” 

“Yep. I read a lot. Fury basically made me a prisoner until I became an Avenger. I had to find something to pass the time. Sometimes some of the SHIELD girls brought me books.” 

“SHIELD girls?” 

Steve laughed. “The women who worked for Fury always seem to have an excuse to come see me. I had a lot to make up for.” 

“Oh?”

“They all wanted to sleep with the old guy.” 

“How many?” 

“Five? Six?”

Tony laughed. “And here I thought you were an innocent. Guess I can’t say much. I kinda fucked everything that moved for years. No idea how many.” 

“Geez, Tony! I guess I never knew you were such a whore.” 

“Like my father before me.” 

“Howard was a horny bastard, just like you. He was always after Peggy. And she liked him, too.”

“She loved you, Steve. She loved you and never stopped. You know that.” 

“You know, sometimes I see something and I think, for a moment, I want to tell Peggy about that. My heart aches when I realize she’s gone.” 

Tony pulled Steve’s head over onto his shoulder. He kissed Steve’s hair. “I can’t even imagine...”

Steve let Tony hold him, letting Tony be strong for him for once. 

*

Thor and Rocket met with Wong, who told them as much as he could about pocket dimensions and the mirror dimension as well. He explained about his sling ring to Rocket. Thor was already acquainted with it from a meeting he once had with Dr. Strange. 

“Will you come with us? Help us?” Thor asked Wong. 

“I am the sole guardian of the Sanctum until Strange returns. I cannot leave that post right now. I will keep in touch by computer and I do have my ring if I need to visit you. I also will search all the books to find out more about time travel. There must be a way to do it without the Time Stone.”

“That is all we can ask, then,” Thor said and bowed to Wong. 

He and Rocket had other duties while they were in New York, the first of which was to find Scott Lang. The thing was, Lang had been missing since Thanos as well. Thor and Rocket tracked down his friend, Luis. 

“What do you mean, he borrowed your van and disappeared?” Rocket asked the incredulous Luis. 

“Uh, he borrowed it to do some experiments with that bossy girlfriend of his and her folks, the grumpy old guy, Hank, and his wife, who’s been gone for like a hundred years or something. Anyway, I found the van. I just didn’t find Scott.”

“Why didn’t you lead off with that?” Rocket asked, getting a little closer than Luis was comfortable with. Talking raccoons were not something he’d seen before. 

“You asked about Scott! Hey, I’m helping. Don’t hurt me. The van is out back.” 

Luis took them out back and showed Rocket and Thor the equipment that Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne had left behind. After talking to Stark on the phone, Luis allowed them to take the stuff back to Wakanda with them for further study. 

In the meantime, Steve and Shuri went to talk to Nebula. Rocket had explained that she, too, was one of Thanos’ adopted band of ‘children’ used to carry out his twisted dream for the galaxy. He said that Gamora had revealed the secret location of the Soul Stone rather than see Nebula further tortured. Gamora had been his shipmate, the girlfriend of Peter Quill and another of Thanos’ stolen children. 

“Do you know where the Soul Stone came from?” Steve asked Nebula. 

“Gamora had a map with the location and she destroyed it so Thanos couldn’t find it. But she knew and he made her take him there. He sacrificed her to get the Soul Stone. It’s all my fault. I told her not to tell him, to let me suffer, but she finally decided that being my sister was more important than anything.” 

“Did you see the map? Do you know?” 

“I – I am not sure I do know. Parts of my brain have been replaced with electronic components. Sometimes I cannot remember what is stored in those files. Perhaps you can access them somehow,” she told Shuri. 

“We can certainly try. I can get the files without hurting you.” 

“I don’t care about myself. I want Thanos dead. He destroyed my planet, my sister and half of the galaxy. I owe him death. If pain and death are my price, I am willing to pay.” Her smile was scarier than any smile Shuri had ever seen. 

Steve thought her brave though probably still quite dangerous. He admired her and her single mindedness. He only hoped there really was more information hidden in her brain than she knew about consciously. He also knew that she would be the one they sent to kill Thanos, if it came to that. 

She followed Shuri to the lab as soon as their conversation was done. Shuri needed extensive scans to see how much of Nebula’s brain was still organic and how much was computer. She would not harm the woman, even if it meant her brother was lost forever. She was not willing to sacrifice anyone yet, and hoped it never came to that. 

Nebula was nervous and Shuri could sense it. 

“Why are you afraid? I won’t harm you. I promised.” 

“Maybe you will find worse things than the location the Soul Stone came from. Maybe you will find out the awful things I have done and forgotten.” 

Shuri looked at her, at the angry, tortured face. “I don’t think I can find things worse than those you remember. What you did before? It no longer matters. Rogers and the others mean what they say. They really only want to set things right. They do not seek revenge.” She stopped, grinned sort of sadly and added, “At least not from you.” 

The scans gave them all the information they sought, but the place where the Soul Stone had been was far, far out in the galaxy. Even Nebula wasn’t sure that she could get there. 

Meanwhile, Steve went out of the compound and outside the city for a run. He ran on the bloody plain where they’d fought and lost. The cleanup had been thorough, but even so, there was blood in the soil. It was, as Abraham Lincoln said once, ground consecrated by those who gave their lives there. He ran until he grew tired then went to the spot in the forest where Bucky disappeared. He stood at the exact spot, a place burned into his mind forever. 

“Are you out there, Buck? If you are, know that we are coming for you all. Whatever the cost, we’re coming for you.” 

The forest was quiet, but Steve was sure he felt – something. He didn’t feel alone there. 

“I promise - I’ll be there ’til the end of the line, Buck, ’til the end of the line.”

He could have sworn there was some sort of echo as he left the forest.

*

 

Wong took a journey and found the book in Kamar-Taj, the book with a time spell. He read the pages over and over. It could be done. They didn’t need the Time Stone. He could do it. Should he? What would Strange say? Would he agree? 

It didn’t really matter, now, did it? It had to be done. 

He picked up the phone and called Tony Stark. 

When Steve got back to the compound, Stark met him. “Wong called. He has a spell to travel in time. We can theoretically travel back to get the Stones.”

“Then what the fuck are we going to do with them? Won’t Thanos still take them? Will it bring the others back? And another question that I’ve been thinking about - do we need more than one of the Stones?” Steve had gotten over his original aversion to bad language over time. 

“We’re still working on that idea, Steve. Bruce and Shuri are going over the stuff from Hank Pym as soon as Thor and Rocket get back with it.”

“Tony, I swear I felt them out there, the ones who are gone. It was like an echo of – not sound – but life. They are still somewhere, not dead but somewhere.”

Tony took his hands and held them tight, then he put his forehead against Steve’s and looked him in the eye. “I hope you’re right. I can’t bear the thought that -” 

“That they’re gone forever,” Steve finished for him. 

Steve wrapped his arms around Tony and held him close. “We will get them back, no matter what it takes.”

Steve kissed Tony and headed for the apartment for a shower, while Tony went back to the lab. He needed to talk to FRIDAY about the Quantum Realm and he wanted to talk to Wong again about the ‘multiverse’ as he’d heard Strange refer to it. He was beginning to get an idea. 

Late that night, Tony came into Steve’s apartment and tried to be quiet. He figured that Steve was asleep and he didn’t want to wake him. These last few days had been hard on them all and Steve, though he was a supersoldier, still got tired and needed rest. 

He needn’t have worried. 

“Tony?” Steve was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. 

“Sorry I’m so late. I talked to Wong some more and then sat down with Bruce and Shuri for some theorizing.”

“Did you come up with anything?” 

“We believe that we have to retrieve only one of the Stones from their place in time before Thanos got them. Once we have even one of them, that one should reverse the effects of the gauntlet.”

“Doesn’t that open a whole new set of problems?”

Tony sighed. “Yeah, it could. We haven’t solved that yet.”

“Come to bed, then. I can make you forget for a little while and you can do the same for me.”

Tony thought that sounded like an excellent idea. 

Steve turned on a little nightlight in the bedroom. He wanted to look at Tony tonight. Tony had barely gotten into the room before Steve was all over him, pulling at his clothes and kissing him, touching him all over and rubbing his own body all over Tony. 

It was only then that Tony realized that Steve had been naked all along. 

“Tonight you are mine, Tony Stark.” He pushed Tony onto the bed and got in beside him. He grabbed Tony’s wrists and held them over his head as he kissed him, plundering Tony’s mouth with his tongue as he rubbed his hard cock against Tony’s hip. “Tell me that you’re mine. Say it.”

“I’m yours. I belong to you.” 

Steve bit his shoulder and moved on top of him. He pinned Tony to the bed with his own body. He reached up under his own pillow for the tube they kept there and hurriedly applied it to himself them he pushed Tony’s legs up toward his head and made Tony ready. 

The coupling was fast, feverish, almost desperate on Steve’s part. Though the pleasure was exquisite, Tony worried when it was done. What was Steve so desperate about? 

 

*

The next few days were spent in talking about time travel. 

Bruce laid it out. “If we change time, then the future, the NOW will be altered. Only the traveler will remember the past.”

“Which makes me wonder which stone to grab,” Tony said. 

Bruce was thinking out loud now. “If we begin with the Tesseract, that might nullify any and everything that’s occurred after it: the battle of New York, Wanda and Pietro gaining powers, Sokovia, Gamora’s death… all of it. Or it might only nullify the things it’s directly associated with.” 

“So if we choose a Stone from later, then the horrible things would still happen up to the point we take the Stone?” Shuri asked.

This brought up more questions. 

Steve was walking around the table, as was Tony. “Where would we hide the stone or stones that Thanos won’t find them when he comes looking?”

“And could the person who did this traveling ever return?” Bruce asked.

“Where will we find Thanos?” Thor asked. 

It made Tony’s head hurt to even think about it all, but they had to. They had to fix this mess. There was simply no other option. 

Thor and Rocket had returned to Wakanda with the contents of Luis’ van. Bruce and Shuri began going over each thing, while Tony talked more with Wong about time travel and about the Time Stone. Perhaps if they could get that Stone, they could fix the world without changing everything quite so much. 

“Won’t the Time Stone make it all right again?” Tony asked Wong as they talked face to face onscreen. 

“I only ever saw Strange use it one time and he made a time loop to defeat Dormammu, finally striking a deal with him. I don’t think a time loop will change Thanos’ mind at all. It might help you reset the world, but I’m not sure that is a solution. All it would do is set the same thing up to happen once again.” 

“We’ll have to add consideration of that to the list,” Tony told him as he said goodbye. 

Rhodey returned to Wakanda, fed up with Ross and the UN. All they were interested in was placing blame and prosecuting someone. Unfortunately, the someone they wanted the most was Steve. They were perfectly willing to try to put everything that happened off on him. Rhodey literally told Ross to ‘go fuck yourself’ and left the country. 

“Really, they want Steve for this? How the hell did they come up with that?” Tony asked him.

“He’s already a fugitive so he’s easy to blame. Do you all even see the news here? They’re claiming that this was some sort of weapons failure that released a chemical weapon that wiped out half the planet. No mention of aliens, monsters, Thanos,” Rhodey told him. 

“And it’s Steve’s fault?” Tony shook his head. 

“Yes, he found the weapon when he brought SHIELD down and used it to free his friends.” Rhodey had come to respect Steve, if not like him, over the years. He also knew how Tony felt about Rogers.

“His friends have been free for two years.” 

“You know that the UN and the government never let a fact bother their storytelling,” Rhodey reminded him.

Tony sighed. This would hurt Steve. He’d given so much and gotten so little in return. He supposed he should tell him. 

He waited until after dinner and back in their apartment.

“Rhodey says the UN is pinning this on you.” Tony was not very diplomatic, but then again, sometimes things just had to be said as quickly as possible, like pulling off a bandage. 

Steve shook his head. “I’m not surprised. Ross won’t rest until I’m jailed or dead.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Tony assured him, kissing his cheek. “I won’t let it.”

“You do know that this time traveling that we are discussing – it’s a suicide misson, don’t you?” Steve asked him. 

“I hope not.” 

Steve didn’t answer, but Tony couldn’t get Steve’s words out of his head. 

 

*

In the next days, Rhodes joined in on the conversation to figure out where to travel back to and what to do. They had several scenarios that they were talking about. 

They actually all met in a large conference room, all the people who sought to fix the world and return the lost. 

Bruce stood and presented his idea. “We go back six years to New York after the battle with the Chitauri. We take the Tesseract from there, bring it to the future, here in Wakanda. This should undo the disappearing, but would cause the least disruption. It would still leave the world open to Ultron and Sokovia, since the Mind Stone would still be here. I’m not sure we can change that or even sure we should.”

The Time Stone idea was Tony’s favorite one. “We retrieve the Time Stone from Kathmandu before Strange took possession of it and use it redo things back to a point that we can fix them without changing the timeline altogether. We can create a loop and redo time until we fix it, much as Strange did with Dormammu. The shortcomings of this plan are obvious: Thanos is not Dormammu. And he might not ever give up.”

They could turn back time and take the gauntlet from Thanos on Titan, before he got the Mind Stone from Vision. But they’d failed at that once already, Thor pointed out. His point was taken by the rest.

There were more unanswered questions. “What will we do with these Stones? Can we keep them from Thanos? Can any of us really defeat Thanos?” Steve asked. 

Shuri and Bruce then made things even more complicated when they reported on what they had gleaned from the equipment and computers in the Luis’ van. 

“It would appear that Janet van Dyne did indeed spend thirty years in the Quantum Realm, a place outside of space and time, a pocket dimension of sorts,” Bruce said. 

“She used the technology that made her, Hank Pym and Scott Lang small to make herself so small that she was in the molecular level. The problem was that she couldn’t get back on her own and Pym did not have a big enough power source to get her out, until now,” he continued. 

“So are they all in the Quantum Realm?” Tony asked.

“No. We’re not sure who is,” Shuri answered. “Luis reported ‘dust’ particles around and in the van, the same kind that were found wherever people disappeared. Someone is probably in the Quantum realm and the rest are, well, dust.” 

“Can we get in it?” Rhodey asked. 

“We can. Wakanda has enough energy to work the apparatus. We believe that this might be a place to hide the Stones,” Shuri answered. 

“Is it a one way trip?” Tony asked, remembering Steve’s words about a suicide mission. 

“We don’t think so. We think that maybe Scott Lang is in there. No one has found his Ant Man suit, so it’s logical to think he is the one who went in.” Shuri said. 

“Wong will come here when we need his help. He can use his sling ring. He can find us even though Wakanda is hidden,” Bruce said. 

Everyone began talking at once. Shuri held up her hand. 

“We have many details to work out and we are not even positive that we can do these things. We will have to test time travel itself. We know that Dr. Strange did it, but he had access to the Time Stone.” 

“Dr. Banner and I will continue working on the Quantum Realm machine while others of you will research other things. Mr. Rhodes will be in charge of assigning tasks at the request of myself, Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark. Does this work for you all?” 

Everyone agreed. 

And they all set to work again. 

Steve still had no real task. He was at loose ends. And his ghosts came back to haunt him. He thought of the ones he’d lost… all of them, his mother, Peggy, war friends, Bucky… even though he loved Tony, he still felt alone most of the time. Perhaps it was simply that he’d been here too long, was too old. He’d read in the papers that he was a ‘man out of time’ and maybe that was true in all senses of the word. 

He came to a decision. He would be the traveler _and_ he would go into the Quantum Realm. His strength and endurance made him hard to kill and he knew there wasn’t a more stubborn son of a bitch anywhere than he could be. He didn’t fear death and he didn’t fear living in some kind of limbo forever either. The monsters he’d met and the ghosts he lived with every day made him sure that there was little out there worse than what he’d already seen. 

He started reading Hank Pym’s files. He also convinced Wong to loan him some of the books on multiverse dimensions from the Sanctum. He needed to know about these things if he planned to convince Tony that he was the perfect candidate for the job. Actually, he wanted Tony’s blessing, but he was going with or without it. 

Natasha noticed what he was reading. 

“You going to do this?” She arched an eyebrow at him. 

“You know it has to be me.” 

“I figured. Have you told him yet?” 

“Tony? No.”

“You know he’s going to try to stop you, maybe by going himself.”

“Yeah. He will, but Shuri and Bruce know. So does Thor.”

“Then you need to tell him.” Natasha had been the voice of practicality to Steve since he’d met her. 

“Tell me what, Steve?” Tony walked up and saw the ancient book in Steve’s hand. “That you’re planning on going on at least one of these missions? You don’t have to tell me. I know you that well.” 

[](https://imgur.com/ZJm4sSi)

He didn’t look as angry as Steve had expected. 

“Yeah, I’m still pissed at you, Cap, but right now, you are the most capable for this mission out of all of us.”

“So it’s set?” 

Tony made a rude noise. “Nothing’s set yet. We have to think about time itself for a bit before jumping into this thing. We don’t want to fuck up things worse than they already are.” 

“Is that possible?” Natasha asked Tony, genuinely curious. 

“Fucking things up worse than they are is always possible. Whatever we do will change the timeline and only the traveler will know what has been changed when he or she gets back.”

“So we need to choose the one Stone that leaves the smallest ripple,” Natasha said.

“Yes, but which one? And when?”

“If you go far enough back and get the Tesseract, then you can stop all of it,” Steve said. 

“We might even stop you from being made.” 

“Would that be so bad if we fix the world?” He meant it.

Tony closed his eyes. “Maybe not, but I’m thinking that we’d create less ripples if we come the closest to the present time.” 

“Vision and the Mind stone?” Natasha asked.

“Maybe too close there.” Tony looked at Steve. “Been reading up on all this time business?” 

“Wong sent me some stuff.” 

“Come with me,” Tony said. 

Steve looked at Natasha and shrugged. He followed Tony. They went to the lab and there was all of the stuff from Hank Pym. He showed him files about the Quantum Realm. There were schematics for the suits. 

“Can you make one?” Steve asked him.

“Shuri says she thinks we can. I am inclined to agree with her. We think someone is in there, in the Quantum Realm. Maybe Scott Lang. We can’t find his suit. We did find a woman’s suit. It seems to be a wasp and there is an older suit, maybe the one Pym made thirty years ago.”

“What are we going to do once we’re in there?” Steve asked. 

“Hide the Stone.”

“One way trip?” 

“It might be. I sure hope not.” 

Tony grabbed him and pulled him into a smaller room off the lab, a small storage room of some sort. He shoved him up against the door. “You planning on being a dickhead and doing all of these things, aren’t you?”

Steve nodded. 

“Why? Any of us are willing.”

“I’m expendable. The rest of you aren’t.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You scientist and engineers have to figure things out. If any of the smaller ships got away, Thor will have people to take care of. Natasha has Clint and his family. Bucky may even be back.” 

Tony made a face, almost like he was in pain then he turned away for a moment. 

“I don’t want to give you up! Don’t I count?” he asked Steve when he turned back toward him. 

“The world needs you.”

Tony threw his arms around Steve as if he were a toddler. Steve held him. Tony didn’t cry, but he held Steve tight. “I can’t talk you out of any of this, can I?” He murmured against Steve’s neck. 

“No. Figure out how to bring me back.”

“I’ll devote my life to it.” 

Steve held him out at arm’s length. “No. I want you to marry Pepper and have a couple of little Starks before you’re too old. Name one for me.” 

“God, you’re serious.” He didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity or cry. 

“I want you to be happy and I want to save the world. I was made for this, Tony.” 

*

There was one more detail they needed to pin down. A big one. Thanos needed to be found and destroyed. 

Nebula was ready to kill her ‘father.’ All she needed was an opportunity. That meant they needed to either figure out where he was and go after him or draw him out. Either way, they had to figure out just how to kill him. 

Tony had some ideas. He had been to Titan and he thought maybe that Thanos would rest there, maybe remake it like he wanted it or go back in time to a time before it was used up. If he had gone back in time, then they’d need to draw him out. Or if they got all the Stones, he’d be trapped where he was. 

The plan was looking to be a three part one so far. 

Go back and steal some or all of the Infinity Stones. 

Take them into the Quantum Realm. 

Kill Thanos. 

Could they do it? Maybe.

The real question was did they have a choice? And the answer was no. 

 

*

Wong had read all the texts. He talked to the guardian at the Hong Kong Sanctum. He had even experimented with small time jumps and they worked. He had gone back to last Tuesday and on a bolder note, he had gone back to before it all happened and watched himself and Strange eat dinner. Time travel was possible. 

He had to open a new dimension and making a time corridor to travel through. He hoped he could teach one of the others to do it. He knew he could do it himself, but they needed one of the Avengers to go back to the battle of New York. 

He knew that Rogers was probably the best candidate because he was not as entrenched in science and logic as the others. Maybe Thor would suffice, too. He understood magic as well as science. 

Wong traveled to Wakanda via his ring to talk to the Avengers and give them all his findings. 

“Good to see you, Mr. Stark.” Wong bowed to Tony and shook Steve’s hand. “I’ve read a lot about you, Captain Rogers. Ah, Dr. Banner, nice to see you again as well.” He turned to Shuri and did a small bow. “Your majesty. It is an honor.”

“I am pleased to meet you, too, Wong. We practice some mystical arts here in Wakanda but vibranium has given us most of our technology. Our magic and our faith gives us strength and wisdom.” 

Wong was very impressed with the young woman. 

“This is my mother, Ramonda. She is our queen,” Shuri said as he introduced her mother to Wong. He took her proffered hand and kissed it. 

“My daughter tells me you are here to help set this world to rights. I do hope you are able to help all these children here.” She indicated the room full of Avengers. “They are lost without their companions. I, too, am lost without my son. So is Shuri.” 

“I shall do my best, madam.” He bowed again. 

“Shall we get to work then?” Shuri urged them all to the conference room to discuss things first. 

Tony asked Wong, “So you’ve tested this spell?”

“It’s not exactly a spell, Mr. Stark, but yes, I have tested it on a small scale.”

“Will it work for us?” Steve asked. 

“You would have to be trained, not as extensively as Strange was, but you’d have to learn to open a mirror dimension and to have your own ring to do it with.” 

Steve nodded. 

“At this time,” Bruce said, “we think that the Space Stone is the one we should go after. It would need to be retrieved from Thor before he takes it back to Asgard. The thing is, this could change the future so much that whoever gets it won’t come back to a world anything like it was before he left it.” 

“Why don’t we just keep the Mind Stone from Thanos?” Stark asked. 

“Because he handed us our asses when we tried to do that,” Steve answered. “Only a fool would do it again and expect a different outcome.”

“Is there any way to travel to where Thanos is?” Shuri asked. “Perhaps you could destroy him and take the gauntlet away.”

“That might work but we’d have to locate him in space and time,” Bruce answered. 

“He will got to Titan!” Nebula said loudly. “He will go home.” 

“But will he fix Titan or will he go back in time to when it was beautiful?” Tony asked. 

“So many questions, so few answers,” Steve said. “I can leave a message for us from the past. Instructions what to do when we have the Space Stone. They can be encrypted in some way that proves to Stark or Banner that they’re authentic.”

“But how will we find Thanos?” Rhodey asked. 

Nebula spoke again. “If you remove the Space Stone and it undoes what he has done, he will come for it. We won’t have to find him.” Her smile was frightening. “He will find us.”

“So we get it and take it to the Quantum Realm and whoever takes it, stays. Back here, you destroy the devices and the science to get to that Realm so it’s lost forever,” Steve said. 

“And when he comes, I will kill him!” Nebula said. 

“Won’t you need help?” Tony asked her. 

“Yes, we will need magic and science to trap him and destroy him. We must get the gauntlet and do something with the rest of the Stones, too,” Bruce said. “Since we cannot unmake them, we must hide them.”

“I am the best bomb and weapons builder in the galaxy,” Rocket told them. “I can build a gun that will kill the bastard!”

“Rabbit and I will aid Nebula! He killed my brother, Loki, and I owe him a death,” Thor said. 

“So who is doing these things?” Tony asked. “I volunteer to go back to New York.” 

“No. I will,” Steve said. “The world needs you, your science and your wealth. I am a soldier. I need to do my duty.” 

Tony wanted to argue with him, to demand he not do it, but he knew Steve was right. Steve was a soldier. He would complete his mission or die trying. And a supersoldier was hard to kill. 

“We’d better get to work then,” Shuri said. “Mr. Wong, can you train Captain Rogers here in Wakanda?”

“No, I would prefer to train him in the old training facility in Kamar-Taj. I can take us there.”

“Who will deliver the stone to the Quantum Realm?” Bruce asked. 

Steve spoke up. “I’ll do that as well. When I return from the past, I’ll take the Stone away.” 

Again Tony had to bite his tongue from arguing with Steve, even though he knew he was right, that Steve was truly noble and felt like he was the right one to make the sacrifice. Tony knew also that he didn’t want to lose him. Ever. 

They would begin Steve’s training the next day. It gave him one night to be with Tony before he left. 

“Can I talk you out of this?” Tony asked him as they sat on the sofa after dinner. 

“No. It has to be me.” 

“You’re going to leave me like you did Peggy?” 

That made Steve stop and consider. “The rest of you need to be here. You’re important.”

“You’re the glue, Cap. You hold us all together.” 

“You have to be the glue after I go. They all look up to you.” He laughed. “You and Rhodey are the old guys anyway.” 

“Gee, thanks.” 

They both were putting off going to bed, going to sleep because that would bring tomorrow. 

“You do know if the timeline changes enough that if I come back, when I come back, you and I won’t be together?” Steve asked Tony. The thought that all they’d shared would be erased made his chest hurt, as if his heart was already breaking. 

“I think you should take a note back with you…leave it for me. I can’t imagine not loving you.” 

Steve stood and reached for Tony’s hand. “Come to bed. I want to give you something to remember.”

Tony took Steve’s hand and followed him to the bedroom. It was near dawn before they slept. 

*


	4. Part Four

Part Four

Wong and Steve left early the next day, traveling via Wong’s ring to Kamar-Taj. Steve loved the place. Even though the Ancient One was gone, there were still trainees and instructors there. Most of them knew Wong from his time there. The place was like another world and another time. 

He skyped with Tony as soon as he was settled in his room. 

“So how are you?” Tony was in Steve’s apartment in Wakanda, the apartment they shared. 

“Good. This place is amazing. It’s sort of like a monastery, sort of like a fantasy movie.” 

Tony laughed. “Um, you’re not exactly someone I want to be in a monastery with.” 

Steve blushed. “Yeah, there is that. I miss you already.” 

They chatted a bit longer then signed off, promising to chat again soon. “Think about me when you go to sleep!” Tony said as he signed off. 

“Always, Tony, always.” 

Training began in earnest the next morning, when Steve was introduced to astral projection and mirror dimensions. The instructors were surprised that this western man was so open to their teaching. He was much more open than Strange had been at first. They were also quite surprised to find that he was physically almost a hundred years old. 

Steve proved himself much more adept at the concept of the mysticism of the unseen than Strange, perhaps because his life had not been one of a logic driven scientist. His mother had been a Catholic and he’d been raised in the church. His exposure to religion and the mystic aspects of that made him more accustomed to a belief in things he couldn’t physically see or touch. Much of what he had seen after he was given the serum had opened his eyes to the fact that there are things that science and logic could never explain. 

Wong took him to the library. There were the books on time that Wong had read and shared with Steve, books that could only be read there in Kamar-Taj. They read over them again and again, making sure that Steve understood them as well as Wong did. 

Then Steve learned to conjure, control his own power and use the multiverse. He was quite adept at it, perhaps because it meant so much to him to complete his mission. He was given a sling ring and taught its use. He visited Tony late one night, using his ring. 

“What the hell?” Tony asked when Steve stepped in the bedroom one night about 2 am, waking him from a sound sleep. 

Steve grinned. “Just visiting. A conjugal visit, if you’re game.” He was already pulling his shirt over his head. 

Weeks apart left both of them hungry for one another. They didn’t waste a second of their stolen night, making love until the sun shone in around the curtains. 

“I miss you,” Tony whispered as Steve dressed. “I think about you more than I do Iron Man suits.” 

“Wow! You really do love me.” Steve laughed and pulled him close for one more kiss. The kiss turned into two then more until was finally an hour before Steve left to finish his training. 

“So, am I as good as Strange?” Steve asked Wong after he was back into his training. 

“I have never seen a sorcerer as good as Strange, except for the Ancient One. Strange was a master of time. I wish that I was more confident that I have taught you enough. You have learned much, though.”

“It’ll have to be enough, Wong.”

Learning enough to transcend time is not a chore for a week or two. It’s not really a chore for a year or two, but a couple of months was all they had. Steve worked long and hard before he and Wong dared to try small time jumps. They only moved about in minutes for a while, then they went back a few days and finally weeks. 

“Are you sure we traveled at all?” Steve asked Wong as they were still in the library. 

Wong smiled and nodded. “Come with me and be very quiet.” 

Steve followed him out to the training yard. For the first time, Steve really understood what traveling in time meant, when he saw himself training with Wong and one of the other instructors. 

Very quietly they returned to the library and moved forward to their own time. 

Traveling this way was more complicated and more fraught with danger than using a device like the Time Stone. One had to travel through many dimensions in the multiverse to arrive at the correct time. Wong called this a time corridor. As was true when traveling from one place to the other, losing the sling ring would strand the traveler the time as well as the place he was. 

Wong and Steve traveled in time and space hundreds of times over the next few weeks.

“Most people would ask to visit their lost loved ones,” Wong said to Steve one evening at dinner.

Steve shook his head. “I can’t. It would break my heart.” He thought about Peggy Carter and knew if he went back in time and had the chance, he’d never be able to leave her. “And it would break my heart to leave Tony for the past, too.”

“I think you are ready, my friend. I’ve taught you all I can.” Wong paused. “You have a wisdom that Strange is struggling with. Perhaps it come with age and time.”

They would travel to Wakanda and rejoin the others. Wong and Steve would then go back to the Sanctum in New York when Steve was ready to leave for the New York of six years ago. 

 

*

While Steve was gone, Tony, Shuri and Bruce worked on Hank Pym’s notes and went over the machinery from the van. Shuri was able to make a new suit and Stark tested it. It was still a little buggy, but then Pym’s suits had always had a few bugs in them as well. They found the notes for the wasp suit as well. Shuri was working on it, too. She liked the idea that it flew. 

Today, they were going to test the suit again. 

Steve had contacted Tony last night and told him that he was ready to come back and begin the process of trying to fix the universe. Tony was afraid they’d bitten off more than they could chew, afraid they’d fail in a way that would leave things even worse than they were now. 

He knew that it was possible for Steve’s trip back to change everything dramatically. He knew they needed Steve to place some info somewhere in the past to help them if the future was changed too much. He decided that the message should be placed in a cloud as well as sent to other physical places so he would find it. He didn’t want to lose Steve and it was very possible that he would no longer be with Steve if they changed the events in New York very much. It was also possible that Steve might not make it back at all. 

He simply tried not to think of that possibility. Ever.

He put on the suit and hit the control button. Instant ant-sized man! It worked. He knew that Pym had worked with communication with ants and bugs, too, but they hadn’t cracked that part yet. He hit the other button and his suit became normal sized again. 

“You know we need to make this fit the Captain,” Shuri said. “He’s a little bigger than you.” She giggled at her understatement. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe everything will change so much that we won’t know what to do,” Tony said. He was getting panicky. 

“I have an idea. What if we store the suits in one of Wong’s mirror dimensions? What if we store you there, too? That way, Rogers will have what he needs when he returns to our time,” Bruce asked. 

“That might work!” Tony was willing to grasp at straws. 

“Or maybe we just do this. I think maybe the more straightforward we are, the better off we’ll be,” Bruce said after some more thought. “The more variables, the more can go wrong.” 

Tony couldn’t argue with that, as much as he wanted to.

Steve and Wong arrived in Wakanda only a few minutes after Tony and Bruce’s conversation and suit test. 

Steve looked different. He’d shaved off his beard in preparation for going back in time. Tony couldn’t stop himself from touching his smooth face. 

“You look like a kid without the beard,” he told Steve. Tony stole a kiss when no one was looking. “I’ve missed you.” 

Neither of them wanted to talk about what they were about to do, but plans needed to be made. Steve would take a message back and upload it somewhere before he tried to get the Tesseract. Everything would be for naught if they didn’t carry through with parts two and three of the plan. 

Natasha came into the room with scissors, grinning wickedly at Steve. “Time to get those locks shorn, Cap.” She actually wasn’t too bad a barber and when she was done, his hair was short as it had been when Tony had first met him six years ago. 

“I think we need some peroxide and some blond dye and we’ll have our old Cap back,” Natasha said when she was all done. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Welcome back. We missed you. Specially your sweetie. He’s a grumpy old fart with you gone.” 

Steve laughed. “He’s a grumpy old fart with me here.”

Tony made a face. “Uh, you both can stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here.” 

They made video files with instruction to their future selves in case they needed them. Tony had Steve try on the Ant Man suit. It fit, though it was a little tighter than on Tony. Steve even tried out the shrinking function and he was suddenly the size of an ant. He popped back to real size then. 

“I like you a lot better this size,” Tony told him. 

Steve ran a hand down Tony’s spine as they stood fairly close. He could feel Tony shiver. He grinned and leaned close. “Will we be done soon for today? I’m kinda tired and wanna rest.” 

“That’s it, folks. Steve’s tired. We’ll knock off until tomorrow.” Everyone knew that it was just a lame excuse, but they were more than willing to go along with it. They all told Steve goodnight, and suddenly, he and Tony were alone in the lab. 

Tony sat at the table and stared at Steve. 

“What?” Steve wondered if he had something on his face. 

“I was thinking about how it might feel to kiss you without your beard tickling me.” His focus was Steve’s mouth. 

“We can go home and find out.” He stood and walked over to the door. “Coming?” 

“God, I hope so!” Tony followed. 

 

*

Back in Steve’s apartment, Steve pulled Tony close. “I’ve missed this so much. Wong didn’t want to kiss me. Imagine that.” He laughed as he kissed Tony’s lips. 

“His loss,” Tony said between kisses. He started peeling Steve’s clothes off, starting with his t-shirt. Steve’s hands weren’t idle either. He cupped his hands on Tony’s ass and pulled him hard against his own body. 

Tony could feel Steve’s erection rub against his own through their clothes and he groaned. He wanted to slow Steve down, but he wanted him right now as well. Tony finished pulling Steve’s T-shirt over his head and worked on his belt. He unbuttoned the top button and yanked his zipper down, shoving Steve’s jeans down. They fell to his ankles and he kicked them away. Tony yanked his own shirt over his head, followed by the rest of this clothes until they came back together naked and hungry. 

The bedroom was only a few feet away, but suddenly, that was too far. They sank to the floor where they stood, amidst their discarded clothing. Steve pushed Tony to lie flat and began kissing his body, beginning with his neck and shoulders. Each nip, each kiss made Tony realize that he was going to beg and soon. 

No one, no lover before Steve, had ever made him feel so needy and so hungry for every single touch or kiss. 

“I don’t know if I can wait any longer,” Tony said Steve’s tongue traced his scar from the Arc Reactor. Steve glanced up at him and sucked on a flat nipple until Tony moaned. “Please,” he begged as the attempted to push Steve’s head lower. He needed that mouth on him, he wanted it on him. 

Steve was as stubborn in love as he was in other ways. He grinned up at Tony and stuck his tongue in Tony’s bellybutton. 

“Fuck!” Tony hissed and squirmed. The sensation was intense and so close to pain, yet not pain. Steve stopped just before Tony thought he’d explode. What he did next wasn’t any easier to withstand. He stuck his nose into Tony’s dark, wiry pubic hair, inhaling Tony’s scent as he ignored Tony’s cock, as it bobbed against his face.

“Damn you!” Tony grabbed his head and shoved him down a few more inches. Steve kissed his penis at the very base, but ignored it otherwise, but only for a few seconds. He looked up at Tony and stuck his tongue out, grazing it up the underside to the tiny little fold of tissue under the head. Tony had no words after that. Steve finally showed him some mercy and took him into his mouth.

Tony bucked beneath him, holding onto the floor as if he might take flight. Steve took him deep, his tongue doing things that Tony didn’t remember it doing before. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered right now, but the man kneeling over him. 

He didn’t realize he was saying Steve’s name over and over like a prayer until he could no longer speak. He came in Steve’s throat, the pleasure consuming him to the point that nothing existed but this, now. 

He wanted it to last forever. 

He was nearly boneless when it was done. His heart was pounding and he couldn’t get enough air. Steve patiently watched him, smiling and licking his lips, looking as hungry as Tony had a few minutes before. 

“Touch me, Tony,” Steve told him when it looked as if he might survive. “Now!” 

“It’s been a long time.” 

“Surely you…” 

“No. I waited to be here with you,” Steve whispered as he kissed Tony once again. “I wanted it to be good, really good.” 

“It might be quick, really quick!” Tony laughed as he ran a finger down the center of Steve’s chest. 

“I’m a supersoldier. I can go all night,” Steve told him. 

“I’m nearly fifty. I can’t. But I’m good for now.” 

“Stop talking then and do something to me. Anything.” 

Tony grinned a wolfish grin as he took Steve’s hand and sucked one of his fingers into his mouth. He sucked it exactly like he sucked Steve’s cock. Steve remembered doing the same to Tony at least a lifetime ago. 

“You are a monster,” Steve growled. 

Tony let his finger go. “You can’t say anything. You stuck your tongue in my navel.”

“Mm… it made you all squirmy. I liked that.” As soon as he said it, he knew what Tony was going to do. 

But Tony made him wait. 

“Let’s get off the floor.” He got up and reached for Steve’s hand. They moved to the sofa. Tony began to kiss Steve again as he ran one hand down Steve’s leg to his knee, then around behind his knee to the tender skin in the bend of his leg.

“You are an evil man, Tony Stark. Don’t do it!” Steve said between wiggling and smacking at Tony’s hands. He was extremely ticklish behind his knees and Tony knew it. Tony moved his other hand up Steve’s belly and wrapped his fingers around Steve’s erection. He stopped tickling Steve and leaned close enough to lap at him a few times with his tongue. 

“You don’t know the half of it,” Tony finally said. He let go of Steve and began a serious exploration of his long legs, down the outside of his thigh, down to his knees, which weren’t ticklish and up the outside of the other thigh. Instead of journeying any lower, he began to nip and kiss the insides of Steve’s thigh, working his way very slowly up until he was close enough to kiss him at the juncture of his torso and his leg, then he started up the inside of the other thigh. 

“You’re killing me.”

“I know,” was Tony’s answer then he went back to his kissing. He kissed his belly and chest, his neck, shoulders and finally his mouth. 

“Either suck it or get down here on the floor and let me fuck you,” Steve said. The words sounded like a demand but they came out more like begging. 

“You gonna make me?” Tony asked. 

“Do I have to?” Steve pushed Tony’s head toward his abdomen. Tony did get on the floor but he was between Steve’s open legs. He looked at Steve watching him and gave Steve as good as he’d gotten, taking him deep and giving him no mercy until Steve came down his throat. 

They showered and found food, but they didn’t leave the apartment until the next day. 

 

*

The last discussions before they set their plan in motion were starting. 

Nebula, Thor and Rocket, along with some of Rocket’s ideas in weaponry, left the planet in the ship Nebula and Tony arrived in. They decided that Thanos would have most likely gone to ground on Titan, and they figured he went back to the past when the planet was an agrarian paradise. They knew that once Steve took the Tesseract, the damage done by the gauntlet should be reversed. That would alert Thanos that something had gone wrong. He would come after them but without the Space Stone, he’d have to travel by ship.

All of these things were their hope. 

They also hoped that the little ship would actually work and take them to Titan. The trip would take a few days. It had taken four to get to Earth so in four days’ time, Steve would use the sorcery he’d been taught, along with his sling ring, which he’d earned, and travel back in time to New York at the end of the battle with the Chitauri and bring the Tesseract back to the present time. 

While this happened, hopefully the trio on Titan could kill Thanos and take the Gauntlet from him. They would bring it back to Earth. 

When Rogers arrived back in the present, he would then take the Space Stone into the Quantum Realm, a dimension outside both space and time, and leave it there. They’d destroy both the inventions and notes of Hank Pym, when Rogers came out of that realm.

All of this depended on reality not changing very much after New York. 

Steve would leave Tony a message in New York to explain what and why they’d done what they did in vague enough terms that it wouldn’t change the future too much, but definite enough to let Tony understand that what they were doing was the only solution. 

If all went well, no one else in the past would even know that Steve had been there. 

Shuri had made Steve a new Captain America suit in red, white and blue, along with a new vibranium shield. He would carry regular clothes in case he had to use them and a special pouch made to hold the Tesseract so he could safely touch it. 

She had also modified his ant sizing suit for the Quantum Realm to look like his Captain America suit. “He might as well go in his own style” was her reasoning. She had developed a fondness for the supersoldier, perhaps because her brother had been fond of both him and their White Wolf, Bucky Barnes. 

Tony was a nervous wreck, though he was acting quite self-confident and even cocky. Everything had to go off perfectly and he’d seldom seen perfection in his life. The cost was high if they failed, as it was possible to rain down even more death and destruction on Earth. 

He mostly worried about losing Steve, but Steve himself seemed to be fine with it. Sometimes he thought that Steve really didn’t care very much if he lived or died. Perhaps this was the effect of living as long as he had. Maybe it was what happened to someone who had lost so much to death. 

“Are we ready to kill some Titan bastard?” Rocket asked as they began to load the weaponry aboard the small ship Tony and Nebula had come to earth in. 

“I will kill him,” Nebula told Rocket. “I owe him that for using me and killing my sister, and for all the torture. It is only fitting that one of his assassin children kill him.” 

Thor laughed in his booming laugh. “He is large; there is plenty of him to go around.” He hefted his mighty ax. “This time, he will not get away from me. I owe him for taking my brother away, too.”

The others walked them to the tarmac. Steve hugged Thor and Nebula, while solemnly shaking hands with the diminutive Rocket. “Keep them in line, Rocket, and kill the bastard for me, too.”

Shuri hugged them all, even squatting down to eye level to hug Rocket. “You are truly one of a kind, my friend. Return to us soon!” 

Tony nodded, which was about as demonstrative as he ever was to all except the few he was closest to. He did punch Thor on the shoulder. “Take care, Point Break, and get this thing done.”

Bruce hugged them all and gave them a motherly warning to take care of themselves, while Rhodey and Natasha hugged and patted Thor and were a bit more reserved with Rocket and Nebula. 

They boarded the ship and began their journey to Titan. 

As they lifted off, Rocket began humming and then singing a song from Peter Quill’s mix tape. 

_I can't stop this feeling_  
Deep inside of me  
Girl, you just don't realize  
What you do to me 

“If you do not cease that awful noise, you will be the first to die!” Nebula hissed at him. 

“Yes, Ma’am!” He grinned at her and started the song all over again. Nebula looked angry but she was pleased that Rocket and Thor were with her.

 

*

“Can you make a fake Tesseract? We need something to leave in its place,” Steve said to Tony and Shuri as they began last minute preparation in the lab. 

Shuri nodded. “We are already working on it, Captain. I should have it for you in a few hours.”

They made a credible copy of the Space Stone and placed it in the little pouch they’d made for him to transport the real one in. He made a voice file to leave the past Tony. He had decided to take the Tesseract from the lab in order to meet fewer people. The fewer people he met, the less his chance of leaving an effect on the time line.

Four days passed and everyone was on edge. They had gotten a couple of messages from their Titan bound companions and all was well so far. Nebula had not killed anyone yet, as far as they could tell. That was a small victory, in Tony’s opinion.

On the fourth day, Steve said a private goodbye to Tony, a public one to the rest of his comrades, put his ring on, got his gear ready and traveled to New York to the Sanctum. He and Wong went together into the mirror dimension and from there, with an obscure ‘spell’ they’d found in Kamar-Taj, Steve used his ring to go back to New York on the day after the battle of New York. He positioned himself in Stark Tower and waited. 

He saw Tony come to his lab and begin to prepare the Tesseract for traveling to Asgard with Thor. He was still angry that Loki was going to be sent back with his brother. He wanted the bastard jailed here. 

 

Tony was still completely exhausted from the battle. His whole body hurt from the beating he’d taken putting that nuke through the portal at the last second. He was also surprised. He’d found out that Captain America was all his father had said and more, much to his own dismay. Before the battle, he’d hoped to make up with Pepper again and maybe marry her. Now he knew he was going to give something with Rogers a shot. Couldn’t blame a guy for trying, could you?

Rogers came into the lab, looking over his shoulder, as if he were checking for anyone watching him. Something was odd, but Tony couldn’t put his finger on it. 

“What can I do you for, Cap?” Tony asked him. 

“I have little time. I am not the Steve Rogers who fought the Chitauri with you yesterday.” 

Tony just stared. What the hell?

“I’m from 2018. I have come for the Tesseract.” 

Tony still said nothing, looking hard at Rogers. He moved closer, walking around him. He _was_ Steve Rogers, but he wasn’t – somehow. He put a hand out to touch Rogers and Steve caught his hand. 

“I don’t have time for this.” 

“As far as I know, time travel is impossible. And believe me, I’d know if it were possible,” Tony shot back. 

“You don’t know everything, Stark.” Steve had not thought that it would be so hard to convince Tony that he was telling the truth, obviously a mistake. “What can I do to prove I’m me?” He didn’t have a lot of time.

“Give me a sample of your blood.” Tony went right to it. “I’ll believe if the science says it’s you.”

“If that will convince you.” He rolled his sleeve up. He wasn’t wearing his suit since he’d decided to come to this day instead of to the battle itself. He wore khakis and a blue plaid shirt, standard Rogers’ civilian dress. 

Tony cleaned his arm and drew out a small vial of blood. He ran it through a centrifuge and one other machine of some sort, then printed out a sheet of paper and looked up something on the computer. The data on both was the same. 

“I don’t know what is going on but this says you are Steve Rogers, and I know he’s gone with Romanov to meetings with Fury in DC today. I saw them leave on a Quinjet a few minutes ago.”

“I told you where I came from.” Steve stood very still. He knew that Tony still had a working suit and would put it on in a second if he felt threatened. 

Tony looked at him hard, clearly wanting to not believe him. “What is going on? If you’re telling me the truth, tell me why you’re here.” 

Steve held his hands up and took a step closer to Tony and with one hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive.

“I can’t tell you much. As much as you need to know is in this file.” He stuck a drive into the computer and uploaded a file. This was something the 2012 Steve didn’t know how to do yet.  
“The file is called ‘WakandaForever’. Look at it when I’m gone.”

“I still don’t want to give you the Tesseract.”

Steve took the replica out of the pouch and held it in his hand. It looked like the real thing. Tony touched it and it pulsated with light. He turned away, looking up then down, as if the answers would be written somewhere. 

“We need it desperately, Tony.”

Steve walked to the counter where the Tesseract lay, its white light shining brightly. When he reached for it, Tony grabbed his wrist. 

“Not yet. I’m not convinced.”

Steve thought of one thing that might convince Tony he was really Steve Rogers. “I thought fondue was something dirty.”

Tony’s eyes widened and he looked hard at Steve. “I’ll be damned. It _is_ you. My dad actually told me about that once when Peggy was visiting. She said Dad was still an ass.” 

“Howard was always an ass,” Steve said with a smile. 

“Damn.” He nodded. “Let’s do this before my better judgment changes my mind.”

They traded the Tesseract for the sparkly stone. 

“Thanks, Tony. Oh, and that thing you’re thinking about doing? Go for it.” And he was gone. 

*

Titan was teetering on the edge of oblivion. t had been knocked off its axis and was near complete destruction. They had very little time.

Nevertheless, Nebula landed the ship. 

“Are you sure we won’t be destroyed?” Rocket asked her. “This place is falling apart.” 

It was then that they noticed something odd. The air began to swirl in small patterns all around them, like several tiny whirlwinds, sucking in the dust and debris. The little tornadoes seem to grow tighter and tighter as they expanded in size, which made no sense at all. 

One by one they began to become - something. For a moment, they looked like some sort of solid blob then the blobs became people, Stephen Strange, Peter Quill, Mantiss, Drax and finally Peter Parker. 

Of course, right after they materialized, Thanos did as well. 

“Well, well, well. What have we got here? Ah, my daughter has come to see her old father.” 

“I’ve come to kill you, you monster,” Nebula said with a sneer. 

He laughed. The shriveled gauntlet was still on his hand but it no longer held six stones. The Space Stone was missing. “How did your weak friends travel in time, sorcerer?” he asked Strange.

“I guess they’re smarter than I knew,” Strange said with his natural arrogance. 

“I guess we’ll have to do something about that then, won’t we?” Thanos said to them all.

 

*

Steve Rogers arrived back in 2018. He was in the New York Sanctum and it looked the same. Wong greeted him.

“You have the Stone?” he asked. 

“Yes, has anything changed?” Steve was anxious that he’d come back to a totally different world.

“Yes, people are reappearing all over. You should take the Stone and head back to Wakanda.” 

Steve thanked Wong. “What shall I do with this ring?” 

“Use it to go home and keep it. You trained and earned it. It’s yours.” 

He used the ring to open a portal into Wakanda. 

*

In Wakanda, people were reappearing everywhere. Reports were coming in from all over the world that the same was happening everywhere. The dead, however, stayed dead. The battle field in Wakanda actually had more than a few of Thanos’ people returning as well. They were fairly quickly subdued and jailed by the Dora Milaje. There was no escape for them this time. 

Suddenly Bucky, Sam, T’Challa, Wanda and scores of others appeared. 

Steve appeared, too, but not from the reversal of the Stone’s affect. He stepped out of a ring of fire into the lab, where Tony and Shuri waited for him. 

“I’m glad you said what you did or I might have chickened out,” Tony told Steve by way of greeting him. Things had not changed too much, then, Steve hoped. 

“Are we ready for me to take the Stone into the Quantum Realm?”

“We are,” Shuri answered. “We have a small device for you to use to come out. It will work for one person for now, so all you need to do is leave the Space Stone and come back.” 

“Is Bucky here?” Steve asked Tony.

“Yeah.” Tony answered tersely. He still couldn’t look at Barnes and probably never would be able to do so. “He’s in the other room, waiting for you.”

Steve went to the room next door, a small sitting room used as a breakroom for the techs who worked there when the world wasn’t falling apart. 

Bucky smiled when he saw his old friend and hugged him. He was still dirty from combat. He hugged Steve. 

“Welcome back! I was afraid I’d never see you again!” 

“Here I am, still old and one armed!” Bucky grinned. “What’s happening?” 

Steve gave him a quick rundown and told him he had to go finish his mission. 

“I’ll see you when you get back!” 

“Good deal! Take care of yourself. Watch out for Natasha, too. And I know he doesn’t want to see you, but if it’s ever possible, talk to Stark.” 

Bucky was no fool. He knew that Steve was saying goodbye. He didn’t plan on coming out of that Quantum Realm. He wondered if Stark knew it. He would never quite understand what Steve saw in Stark, but he seemed to love him so who was he to judge? He wondered if he said something to Stark, he might change Steve’s mind, but he knew better. His friend was a stubborn SOB when he wanted to be. 

Damn Steve Rogers! 

 

*

Thanos acted as if nothing had happened, but he knew better. He knew that without all the Stones, his control was done. Whatever they had done, they had reversed the one thing he had spent a lifetime doing. 

He would not let these puny little know nothings ruin his grand gesture. He had given his all to save the universe and was not going to let his life’s work be undone. 

The other people on Titan with him disagreed with that premise and meant to stop him at all costs. 

Without discussing it at all, they all converged on Thanos. Their weapons were still cast about on the planet and Rocket wasted no time grabbing them and tossing them to his companions. He had made himself a huge weapon that shot energy bolts in varying degrees of lethalness. He had it set on highest setting. Thor had his axe. Peter Quill and Drax caught what Rocket tossed to them. Mantis circled Thanos from behind. Peter Parker was flitting about, shooting webs. Stephen Strange began casting spells. 

Mantis leaped on Thanos, grabbing his head and using her empathic abilities, stopping him from doing anything at all, just as she had before. Strange cast an immobility spell while Peter Parker began to spin a web all around him, to help subdue him if he woke. Thor and Nebula began to pull on the Gauntlet as Stark had before and it moved. The others stood, ready to shoot with all their firepower as soon as the Gauntlet was removed. 

Thanos’ eyes were closed and he murmured Gamora’s name, as if talking in his sleep. He tried to move but could not. Suddenly, the Gauntlet let go, Thor and Nebula falling back on their asses, holding the Gauntlet between them. The others, Quill, Drax, and Rocket began firing their weapons all at once. Thor stuffed the Gauntlet into a container hanging from his waist, a container designed by Stark and Banner for that very purpose. Nebula pulled both of her weapons form their holsters and began shooting as well. 

Thanos was well and truly subdued when Mantis let go of her mental hold on him. He roared and tried to move, but he found himself trapped by webs, energy beams, magic… 

“You will regret this, you fools,” he shouted. Couldn’t they see he’d done this thing for them all? 

“We only regret we did not kill you before,” Strange said to him. 

“I want to kill you over and over,” Nebula said, “as you have me!” 

“You are my favorite child, Nebula! Every failure made you a better assassin until even Gamora was not as ruthless and efficient as you. Can you not see how much I love you?” 

“I am only your favorite because you killed Gamora! You killed my sister!” she screamed as she came closer and ramped up her fury. 

Still not quite trusting Thanos not to pretend he was immobilized, they continued to shoot him as Parker kept adding layer and layer of web ropes. Thor grabbed his ax, Stormbreaker, which was forged in the fires of Nidavellir and strengthened by the tendrils of Groot as a handle. He swung the ax at Thanos’ head and severed it completely. 

The Titan’s purple head rolled away from his body and his eyes flew open. His mouth opened as if to speak, then he just stopped. The head was dead, as was the body. None of them stopped firing. They fired until the corpse began to burn and kept firing until smoke and ash were all that was left of their enemy’s body. They turned to the head and did the same thing, reducing it to small pile of oily black debris on the ground.

“Ceasefire!” Rocket yelled, though no one stopped until he yelled again. “That’s enough, you morons!”

Thor turned to Doctor Strange. “Welcome back, Strange.” 

Strange smiled and nodded. 

They secured the Gauntlet from the bag on Thors’s belt into a locked vibranium case and boarded the ship. 

*

Steve Rogers got into the suit they’d designed for him to wear into the Quantum Realm. He hit a button and he shrank to a tiny size, then another button shrank him further. He did this several times, then he was ready. Shuri and Stark had built a small tunnel to send him to his destination and suddenly he was flying along into something different from anything he’d ever seen before. It was like space and the ocean had merged into a beautiful mix with flashing lights and strange things and creatures floating by. 

“Can you hear me?” He spoke into his headset.

“You’re breaking up a little but we can understand most of it,” Tony answered. 

“I’m picking up Lang’s beacon. I’m going to find him.” 

“Wait!” Tony wanted him to leave the Stone and come out immediately.

“I can’t hear you! You’re breaking up!” Steve lied to Tony. He was not leaving Scott Lang in here. Lang had helped him out and had served two years of house arrest as payment, so he owed him. Lang also had a young daughter out there who loved him. Steve had seen a picture of her in the contents of Luis’ van. He wasn’t about to leave the child without her father. 

“Lang, is that you?” he broadcast over his com unit. 

“It is. What happened? I’ve been in here for a very long time, though time doesn’t actually seem to pass here.” Lang sounded surprised that anyone came for him.

“The earth was attacked by another nasty alien and you were stranded here.” 

“Did you come to rescue me?” 

“Not exactly. Let me find you and I’ll tell you more.” 

“Who are you, anyway?” Lang asked. 

“You’ll see.” 

Steve followed the beacon and there he was, Scott Lang, in his Ant Man suit. He waved at Steve. 

“It’s you! And you even have a Captain America suit!” 

“I have a device for you that will get you out of here. I am going to stay for a while. I have a mission to fulfill and I need to stay.”

“What is this Stone you’re talking about?” 

Steve explained a little about what had happened, what Thanos had done. He also told Scott that Hank Pym, Janet and Hope Van Dyne had disappeared along with half of the galaxy. 

“What about Cassie?” Lang was panicking at the thought of his daughter being frightened and alone. 

“Tony said they checked on her and she and her mom and stepdad didn’t disappear. They told her you were away on a mission.”

“She’s too smart to buy that,” Scott said. “She’ll know something weird happened.” 

“Thanks for helping us in Berlin and I’m so sorry about the house arrest,” Steve touched his shoulder. 

“No problem. It’s not every day a guy like me gets to help Captain America out.” 

“Here is the device. Just hit it and you’ll be drawn back to the tunnel and back home. You’ll come out in Wakanda in Africa, but Stark will send you home. Take care of that little girl and have a good life, Lang.”

Lang patted him on the back and took off. Moments later, he came through the tunnel into the lab in Wakanda. He hit the button on his suit that returned him to normal size. 

“Where the hell is he?” Tony Stark demanded. “What did you do to him?” 

“I didn’t do anything. He gave me the device and insisted I leave. I left. Who am I to argue with Captain America?” Lang said nonchalantly, but in truth, he was a bit intimidated by Stark’s anger. 

“Damn him to hell!” Tony turned and walked away, leaving Lang staring at Banner and Shuri. 

Shuri smiled at him. “Hello, Mr. Lang. I’m Shuri and this is Dr. Banner. Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers are very close. He’s very worried. If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you where you can clean up and have some food, then you can call your daughter and we’ll make some arrangements to get you back home as soon as possible.”

Lang nodded and followed the young woman. 

Shuri returned to find Bruce and Tony arguing a few minutes later. They were nose to nose.

“I’m not destroying it. I want him back!”

“Tony, we all agreed. Steve knows what he’s doing. Let him have this.” 

“I would never have given him the damned Stone all those years ago if I’d known he was going to be stupid and do this!”

“We agreed, all of us, to do this.” 

Tony ran a hand through his hair and looked around, as if help might come out of thin air. “I know, I know. All right, but you have to know I’m going to go after him someday.” 

“Agreed.”

They had all the equipment they’d used to get into the Quantum Realm loaded up and hauled away to be destroyed, they burned all the paperwork involved and destroyed all the hard drives with Pym’s research on it. 

The three scientists were in the lab the next day, wondering if their space ship companions accomplished their mission or would Thanos show up soon to end them all this time, when Bruce took something from his pocket. 

It was a flash drive. 

“I almost forgot. He said give this to you after the equipment was gone.” He handed it to Tony. 

Tony popped it into the USB port of the closest computer and menu popped up. There was a video file titled, ‘I love you, you bastard’. He clicked on it and it opened. 

Steve was sitting in that very room. He wore jeans and one of his Iron Man t-shirts. He still had long hair and a beard. 

“I’m sure you’re mad at me right now. I understand. But this was something that needed to be done. Someone needs to stay with the Stone and I elected me. Tony, I love you and you know that.” 

Bruce and Shuri made themselves scarce, leaving Tony alone with the video.

“I’m old – I was born a hundred years ago. I’m the one who needs to do this. You have a future and people need you. So do all the others. I’m the logical choice. I’m not sure that time and space exist there as we know it, so maybe someday I’ll see you again. I won’t forget you and I’ll always love you.”

“Take care of yourself and the others.” 

Steve smiled that sad smile Tony had seen too many times over the last few months and he was gone. 

Tony Stark felt odd, his knees weren’t working properly. His arm hurt and it felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest…

Shuri and Bruce found him unconscious minutes later. 

Bruce shouted at him. Shuri dropped to her knees beside him. She called medical personnel on her comm and they were there in seconds, though it seemed like forever to Bruce and Shuri. 

Bruce, being a medical doctor as well, recognized what happened to Stark and told Shuri they needed a cardiologist. Tony was taken to the hospital where he was stabilized. They did scans and determined that he required no surgery, only a medication and more rest and exercise. 

He woke flat on his back with Shuri and Natasha Romanov staring down at him. He had all sorts of machines hooked up to him. He tried to sit up, but Natasha put her hand on his arm.

“Woah, there, Stark. You’re not going anywhere.”

“What happened? Did I bang my head?” he asked. 

“You had a small myocardial infarction,” Shuri told him. 

“I had a heart attack?” He tried to get up again and again, Natasha pushed him down. 

“Stay! The doctor says you’re going to be fine, Mr. Stark. We’ve kept you sedated for a couple of days just to make sure you got some rest,” Shuri told him.

“And to keep you out of the way,” Natasha said with a grin. “There’s someone here from space who wants to see you.”

She left the room for a moment and returned with Peter Parker. 

“Mr. Stark! I’m back!” 

Tony smiled. A real happy smile. His little Spiderman was all right!

“Can I, uh, hug Mr. Stark?” he asked Natasha. 

“Go ahead. We’ll leave you two.” 

After the women had left, Peter hugged Tony, squeezing him. 

“Not too hard, kid. I’m an old man now.” 

“I’m so glad to be home, Mr. Stark, sir.” 

“Tony, I’m Tony, and I’m so glad you’re back, Peter. I’m so sorry I got you into such a mess.”

“It’s all right, sir. Um, who was that girl with Miss Romanov? She’s been really nice to me and I like her.” 

Tony laughed. “That girl’s Shuri and she is the sister to the King of Wakanda and a brilliant scientist.”

Peter grinned. “And she’s pretty, too.” 

“I’ll introduce you when she comes back. She makes awesome suits. You remember her brother, Black Panther, from Berlin?”

“Yeah, the cool dude with the accent.” 

“She designed his suit.” 

“Maybe she could help with ours, um, mine, sir.” 

“Tony! I’m Tony. Maybe she could. Have you talked to your Aunt May?” 

“Yeah, she was disappeared, too, but she’s back and Dr. Banner says they’re flying her here today.” 

“I guess she gets to know the whole truth then.” 

“Looks like it. She may ground me for life.”

“I’ll see if I can help.” 

Peter smiled then asked, “What happened to Captain Rogers? Dr. Banner said he’s gone.” 

Tony told Peter about the Quantum Realm and Steve’s choice to stay there. He tried to keep the sorrow out of his face and voice. 

“Mr. S – Tony. I know you and he were -” he blushed a little, “I know he was your boyfriend, sir, and I’m sorry.”

“It was his choice, kid. He’s noble like that. When he sets his mind on something, no one can stop him.” 

“Like you, Tony.” 

“I wish, Peter, I wish.” 

Peter said goodbye and promised he’d be back soon to meet Shuri.


	5. Part Five

Part Five 

2028 - New Avenger’s Tower, New York City

“I think it’s ready this time,” Tony Stark told Bruce Banner. “Lang is coming in to test it this afternoon.” 

“Is it safe? For Lang, I mean?”

“Well, he says so.”

Tony and Bruce had been working on getting Rogers out of the Quantum Realm for ten years. After deleting Hank Pym’s research, they heard that Pym had passed away suddenly and they’d had to start over from scratch when they decided to try to bring Steve home. 

Scott Lang and his mother-in-law, Janet van Dyne, helped them on their research, but after having spent as much time as they had in the Quantum Realm, neither would go back in if they could avoid it. 

Lang had agreed to do a test of the suits, though. 

Tony looked much the same except his hair had gone gray and he’d not had it colored. He had not married either, though he’d been seen about town for years with Miss Potts, who was still CEO of Stark Industries. 

Tony still couldn’t talk about Steve and not many were brave enough to mention him.

Except Bucky Barnes. In the years following the attack by Thanos, Bucky had become a citizen of Wakanda and its king had negotiated a pardon for Barnes in the US. He had also petitioned for Bucky’s back pay up until he surfaced as the Winter Soldier in the 1990s and had gotten it for him. Barnes had chosen the life of a shepherd in Wakanda, though he had been called on a few times as one of the Avengers. 

Stark had been surprised that Natasha Romanov had stayed in Wakanda and become a part of the Dora Milaje. She had moved out to the farm with Barnes a year later. He couldn’t help but think Steve would be pleased that his best friends had found one another. 

Bucky never approached Tony Stark, except to send him an actual written apology. He never even knew if Stark read it. For the record, Stark had read it, but only because Steve loved Bucky so much that he’d been willing to give up everything for him and did so more than once. While they would never become friends, Stark had forgiven him as much as he could. He just didn’t tell him. 

Bucky called Stark. 

“It’s Barnes.”

“I know who you are. What do you want?” 

“I want to help you get Steve back.” 

“I don’t think you can help us.” Stark didn’t want his help, but in reality, they had no one to get into the suit when they sent it into the Quantum Realm. Steve would be furious if they even asked Lang. 

“I’ll go into the Quantum Realm. I’ll get him out. I only want to save him.” 

Stark knew this to be true. The real Barnes indeed loved Steve Rogers as a brother.

“All right. We have the suit and everything ready. When can you be here?” Tony assumed he was still in Wakanda. His phone did not show a location. 

“Five minutes?” 

A little surprised, Tony answered, “Uh, okay, sure. Let me get Bruce in here and we’ll see if we’re ready. Lang was coming in to test the suit but you might as well, if you’re going to do this.” 

Bucky arrived within minutes. 

Banner greeted him with a warm handshake. That was just Banner. 

Barnes wore his hair long still, pulled back into a sleek ponytail. He had a few gray streaks and a wrinkle or two, but he looked remarkably young. Tony wondered if Steve would still look young and beautiful. 

“Hello, Stark.” 

Stark realized he simply couldn’t pretend Barnes wasn’t really there. 

“Hello, Barnes. I – There has been – Look, Steve loves you more than anyone, so I can tolerate you.”

Bucky nodded. “Natasha is here, too. Can she come in?”

Tony was glad to see her. She was still quite beautiful and as dangerous as ever in jeans and a Captain America t-shirt. He hugged her and kissed her, as did Bruce. Her hair was red again. 

“So are you going to bring him out today?” she asked.

“Maybe. If he’ll come. You know Steve,” Tony told her. 

She smiled at Tony and touched his shoulder. “I miss him, too, every day.” 

Bruce and Natasha helped Bucky get the suit all hooked up and ready for its test run. 

“Can I carry you home in my pocket?” Natasha asked Bucky once he’d ant-sized himself. 

“Can I make it even smaller?” Bucky asked.

“Yes, but not too much, yet.”

He became smaller still. Tony and Bruce asked him questions, had him test all the buttons and switches, and seemed satisfied with the answers. Then he became normal sized again. 

“Okay, even though he doesn’t have a beacon, his suit should show up for you anyway and you should be able to talk to him. Tell him it is safe to come home, that the stones were all hidden by trusted people and they are all far away from each other, the gauntlet was destroyed and Thanos has been dead all these years,” Tony told Bucky as they made another test run before they would send him into the Quantum Realm. “Then give him the second beacon.”

“If anything feels odd or off, tell us to bring you out,” Bruce said.

Bruce grabbed Tony’s comm. “Tell him that Tony needs him back. He’s pestering the rest of us to death.”

Bucky laughed, saluted and he was tiny again, then too tiny to see. They sent him in and he reported how strange things looked. He was quiet for a long time, though the monitors indicated that he was physically all right.

“Can you hear me, Stark?” Bucky asked.

“Loud and clear.” 

“Bring us out.” 

Tony thought he’d stop breathing. Or have a heart attack like he had ten years ago. 

Bucky and Steve came out of the machine. They reverted to normal size. Steve pulled off his helmet and looked at Tony. 

Tony didn’t move or say a word. He stared. Steve looked almost exactly like he had ten years ago. The only difference was the blond was gone from his dyed hair and his dark hair had a white streak in it. It was over his left eye and it went all the way back, almost as if someone had painted a white stripe on his head. 

Steve dropped the helmet and ran the short distance to Tony, pulling him into his arms and kissing him, not paying any attention to anyone but Stark. 

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Steve said. “I missed you so much, every minute.”

Tony just held on. Tight. 

Natasha stepped up and hugged Bucky. “Let’s go to another room, let them be alone for a bit.”

After they were alone, Steve pulled back and looked into Tony’s eyes. “I never dared dream that you’d get me out.”

“I never stopped trying. Bruce and I have been working on this for ten years.” 

“Hey, your hair is gray.” 

“I’m old, Cap.”

“Not too old. Fifty-eight maybe?” He kissed Tony’s cheek. “I’m a hundred and ten, sonny.”

“Let’s go see Bruce, Nat and your pal, Bucky for a few minutes, then let’s go to my penthouse and stay in bed for a month.”

“Can we get delivery? I want pizza from Brooklyn. And I want to watch baseball.”

“I want to get in your pants.”

Steve grinned at him. “Oh? Maybe we should do that before pizza and baseball.” 

Tony kissed him and they left the lab arm in arm.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that Thor used the Tesseract to get back home with Loki in the Avengers. As all writers do, I took a little dramatic license with that one and simply decided to ignore it. 
> 
> There probably were many things I left unanswered or dangling, but those are stories for another day.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Tie Your Heart to Mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16613483) by [KakushiMiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakushiMiko/pseuds/KakushiMiko)




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